Make Vegan Orange Marmalade From Scratch
Orange Marmalade
Marmalade, the Perfect Thing to Spread on Your Toast.
Orange marmalade is, in my opinion, one of the best human inventions ever! The only trouble is that most shopbought orange marmalade tends to be a little bit too sweet for my taste. I like my marmalade tart, if I want to spread something sweet on my toast I can always reach for the jam or honey.
For this marmalade recipe always use un-waxed fruit, if the only fruit you can find has a waxy feel to the skin then wash the fruit well under warm water, changing the water several times.
Nothing will ruin the taste of your preserve faster than residual wax. Orange marmalade is amazingly easy to make and as an added bonus it makes the whole house smell wonderful too as it is cooking. There is something really comforting about the smell, it wraps itself around you like a hug.
Making your own preserves, such as this marmalade, can save you quite a bit of money as shop bought varieties can be very expensive. You also have the added bonus of knowing exactly what goes into your preserves and the ability to tweak the recipe so that it exactly fits your own personal taste. If you are trying to cut down the amount of sugar you eat you can replace some, or indeed all, of the sugar in this recipe with a low-calorie sugar substitute.
Orange and lemon, the main ingredients in this marmalade.
Cook Time
Ingredients
- 6 oranges
- 3 lemons
- 2.5kg white sugar
- water
Instructions
- Place the whole fruit into a very large heavy-based saucepan and cover with four litres of cold water. Bring this to the boil slowly. Simmer for around two hours or until the fruit is very soft to the touch. When you are happy that the fruit is cooked thoroughly remove it from the pan and allow it to cool for around fifteen minutes. Do not throw the cooking water away as you are going to need it later.
- Cut the fruit into large slices and scoop out the pulp, place the pulp into a large colander and set this over the pan of cooking water. Using the back of a spoon press the juice through the sieve then pick out the pips and throw them away before adding the pulp to the pan.
- Thinly slice the rind of the oranges and one of the lemons and add these and the sugar to the pan as well.
- Bring this mixture to the boil slowly, if any white residue rises to the top of the pan skim it off from time to time with a slotted metal spoon. Once the mixture has reached boiling point continue to boil it for forty-five minutes or until the mixture has begun to set.
- The top of the pan should have a bubbly white foam on top during the boiling time if you want the marmalade to be the correct consistency if it goes off the boil your marmalade will be too runny.
- You don’t need to stand over the mixture during this time just check it occasionally. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool for thirty minutes. Stir the mixture well with a large wooden spoon to ensure an even distribution of citrus peel throughout the marmalade. Pour the marmalade into sterilised jam jars, cover with a lid and leave in the fridge for six hours or overnight to set.
This great tasting marmalade will keep very well unopened in a cool dark place for anything up to four months. It tastes really good spread on hot toast, or you can stir a few spoonfuls into your morning porridge instead of adding jam. I also like to add a spoonful or two to cakes and muffins, it makes them wonderfully moist and gives them a bit of a citrus kick. You can also make this marmalade using grapefruit instead of oranges, in which case you should add a little more sugar to taste.
You can never have too many wooden spoons.
© 2011 Galaxy Harvey
