SEVILLE ORANGE AND LEMON MARMALADE

This is a delicious family recipe that has been passed down through the generations.  It may have been  tweaked a bit over but still tastes delicious.  Well worth a try to make.

​

Ingredients

For about 3.5kg of marmalade

1kg Seville oranges

400g lemons

2.8kg granulated sugar​

​

Scrub the oranges and lemons and put them whole into a large preserving pan, cover with 2.4 litres of water.  Cover with a lid and simmer the fruit gently until soft. This takes about 1 hour.

Strain the fruit but reserve the liquid. Halve the fruit, scoop out the pith and pips with a spoon, and place in a smaller saucepan. Add another 300ml of water to the pan of pith and pips and simmer for 10 minutes.

​

Slice the orange peel (thinly or thickly) and add to the reserved liquid in the preserving pan. Strain the liquid from the pith and pips and add this liquid to the large preserving pan.

​

Stir in the sugar, and heat slowly to dissolve the sugar completely, stirring all the time. Increase the heat and bring to a rapid boil until the setting point is reached.  Skim of any scum if necessary.

​

To test for the setting point, place a saucer in the fridge or freezer to cool. When you think the marmalade is ready, put a small spoonful of the boiling jam on to the saucer. Return the saucer to the fridge. Once it has cooled, the jam should wrinkle when you push it with your finger.  This is called the wrinkle test.

​

After taking the marmalade off the heat, remove any more scum from the surface with a spoon.

​

Leave it to rest for at least 10 minutes.  This allows the fruit to disperse rather than all float to the top.

Give it a gentle stir and pour into warm sterilised dry jars. Put a greaseproof disc on the top of each jar and cover immediately.  Label and store in a cool dry place.

This will last for at least a year until the marmalade making season is here again!

Notes

• You can omit the whole lemons if you like but add the juice only.  You will need to up the quantity of oranges to make the full 1.4kg fruit.

• Add a glug of whisky into the marmalade at the end of cooking plus a spoonful of treacle to make it a darker batch.

• As the Seville orange season is short they're only available for a few weeks in January and February.  You can freeze the whole fruit to make later in the year if that suits you better.