Peeling, Pithing, Pipping, Pulping & Production

Promoting Priceless Perfection

For Featuring Frank’s Famous Farmalade. (Marmalade)

Step by Step processing fruit to Marmalade for the next 72 hours: -

Warning Frank’s Famous Farmalade. (Marmalade)

Is a process of a Labour of Love!

Please do not attempt to make, unless you are prepared to work to rule. There are far quicker methods, which I will gladly supply to you on request.

If you would prefer a VW to a Rolls Royce, let that be your choice?

Frank learnt to cook at an early age, as his mother was constantly in hospital. This fascination with cooking gave him the ability to experiment with many aspects of good or weird varieties of Food. It did not take long to learn how to boil water, from there to boiled eggs, even putting the water into a steam iron. You could call it fast learning curve.

The most exotic of foods, ranged from the simple Roast Pork and baked potatoes dinners, Beef Stroganoff, Barramundi, Omelettes, mouthwatering sweets of Pavlova to Christmas Cakes and bewildering Biscuits. Jams become a specialty, as most people liked home made jam but were not willing or did not have the time to make those beautiful coloured Jams. There was one jam he liked: ‘Marmalade!’ “Frank’s Fantastic Marmalade” became a reality, quickly paling all brands of sold marmalade in Australia. Most Marmalades sold in Australia were watery and with little pulp.

Marmalade is the Latin Word for Quince, as Marmalade was originally made from Quinces. This breath-taking high quality Marmalade only takes 72 hours to produce and is bottled in its own 300 gram sterilized jar and lid and a fabric cover. There are usually four fruits with a sugar ratio of 85% of the combined fruit pulp, has no commercial Pectin and only 4.5 cups of water in 40 jars, 1 gram of butter and some brandy too.

Are you ready to make the best Marmalade?

You have ever tasted?

To make Marmalade constantly you may consider buying these at a grocery store or Woolworths

• Jar funnel
• 1 large pot; I prefer 16 to 20 quart Teflon lined pots for easy cleanup.
• (Do not use Aluminum Saucepans.)
• Large wooden spoon and deep ladle
• 1 Canner (a huge pot to sterilize the jars after filling. Not needed if you sterilize your jars in the oven.)
• I wash all jars in hot soapy water and place in the oven when doing the second cooking of the fruit with the sugar.
• Ball jars
• I buy a 300 gram octagonal jar from a Glass manufacturer with lids supplied in boxes of 27.
• Before you run to this expense, you will want to be convinced this is the way to go.
• Lids - thin, flat, round metal lids with a gum binder that seals them against the top of the jar. When you buy the correct jars you get lids that are reusable.
• Rings - metal bands that secure the lids to the jars. They may be reused many times. (Not needed if you buy the jars with lids)
• Jar lifter or tongs to move hot lids or jars.
• 2 dessert spoons.
• 1 Stainless steel jug for pouring your finished Marmalade into you jars.
• 1 Clean cup for putting the Marmalade into your jug. (If you can place these two objects into the oven whilst you are doing the jars, that would be great.(Otherwise boil a jug of water and tip into both)

HEALTH WARNING:

There are two kinds of “Frank’s Fantastic Marmalade”.

(1) Made with Grapefruit, Lemons, Limes, Oranges and Ginger.

(2) Made with Oranges, Lemons, Limes and Ginger... (No Grapefruit)

If you have high blood pressure, some blood pressure medications warn you not to have grapefruit, whilst on this medicine. ‘Uanditogether’ had a very close relative with high blood pressure, where the medication warns you about grapefruit. With this warning, ‘Uanditogether’ commenced making “Frank’s Fantastic Marmalade with three fruit Marmalade.

Ingredients: -

The amount of fruit is not of great concern as the size of your pot will dictate your numbers

If Grapefruit are used (they are bigger than the other fruits.)

4 X Grapefruit.

3 X Navel Oranges. (They have the best taste)

3 X Lemons.

4 X Limes.

For making three fruits

8 X Navel Oranges.

4 X Lemons.

6 X Limes.

Wash all the fruit.

Peeling, Pithing, Pipping, Pulping

Peeling: -

Using a potato peeler you need to take all the skin off the fruit. Be cautious as you need to move around any marks on the skin. These marks will show in your final presentation

Pithing: -

With sharp Steak knife peel all the pith from around the fruit, until you can see the veins of the fruit.

Pipping: -

Cut all fruit into quarters and endeavour to remove all the pips, and then the centre core of the fruit. This is important. (You may miss some pips, but as you boil the fruit they will separate from the fruits. Remove with Dessert spoon.) Then cut the quarters into small segments.

Take these Pips and pith and place in small saucepan with one cup of water and bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir constantly.

Collect all the pips and pith and place in the muslin bag and place in your large saucepan with all the fruit. (Secure this bag with string or a rubber band)

Some people prefer no Peels as they believe they add the characteristic bitterness to marmalade (do one OR the other) I prefer the peels as that is what Marmalade is all about.

Preparation Time is about two hours. (I May take longer than you) Plus overnight in the refrigerator 20 hours.

Pulping

Place all ingredients in to a large bowl and soak over night in the refrigerator in 3.5 cups of water.

I get up early in the morning, as it does not ruin my day for other activities like looking at Hubs.

At my early time I turn the stove on high and bring to boil and then turn down and simmer for 40 Minutes. One must stir all the time. (Unless you can rig you electric beater to do slow turns of speed, with out splatter.)

I was cooking new mix a longtime ago and the phone went. I answered the phone and threw the marmalade mess out with the saucepan. Another reason, for doing it early. No phone calls.

Leave to cool. Remove the muslin bag. When the bag is cold squeeze the bag of all the Juice retained in this bag into your fruit mix, empty the pulp from the bag in the rubbish bin and wash your bag. Pour fruit into a bowl and then place in the refrigerator until the same time next morning.

Preparation Time is one hour. Plus cooling and chilling 24 Hours.

Next morning: -

Weigh the cold Mix in grams on your kitchen scales.

Weigh out 85% sugar of the total fruit pulp into a bowl.

Line baking dish with clean tea towel and place all your washed jars face up, it will not matter if the jars are touching. Put lids face down on a small section of this tea towel. They can be placed on top of each other.

Place fruit pulp into saucepan and put it on high heat, stirring all the time. When getting hot, slowly pour the sugar into the fruit pulp, still stirring. This will be for a total of one hour.

Have four saucers available.

Having stirred the sugar slowly, take a dessert spoon and remove 1 spoon full of pulp sugar and tip onto a saucer. There is no need for you to boil the mass once you have inserted the sugar. Simmer during this time.

30 mins latter remove another spoonful and place on another saucer.

Place 1 gram of butter into the mass. After dissolving, pour a shot glass of Whiskey or Brandy into your mix. (Be careful it will bubble furiously and you may burn yourself.) Take another spoonful of the mix and place on the third saucer.

At the end of your cooking and cleaning up turn the saucers upside down and see if your Fantastic Marmalade (Farmalade) moves. Success on your part says it will not move or trickles off the saucer. Congratulations.

The 4^th saucer is for the removal of pips you may find whilst cooking. You do not want them and no one will give you high marks if they find a pip in your Marmalade.

Take you saucepan off the heat and let everything settle, for 10 mins. Remove your baking dish of empty sterilized bottles from the oven and place on a cleared bench space.

Production

Fill the jars.

Place the lids on after 10 minutes. (Making sure you have screwed the lids on tight.

Fill them to within 1/4 inch of the top; wipe any spilled jam off the top, seat the lid. If the jars have to be moved, this is where the jar tongs come in real handy!

If there is any prospect of you promoting This Idealistic Marmalade, you have to place a label on the jar and a content label on the rear, giving details of what are the contents.

Will this Marmalade keep?

How old is it and how was it kept? It doesn’t spoil that easy if treated correctly, actually jam is a product whose original purpose is preservation of fruit for the winter.

First of all, if you make home-made jam, be sure that all your utensils and especially the jars/lids are very clean. I wash them in water , then place in oven to sterilize.

Make sure your sugar/fruit ratio is correct, look at your recipe With no Commercial pectin, a much longer cooking time is required.

After filling sterilized jars with hot, boiling jam seal them. After a ten min cooling, you may turn upside down for 30 seconds. The hot jam will kill any bacteria possibly left. Turn back around and let them cool. Jam treaded like this should have a shelf life of at least one year or longer. No refrigeration needed until after you open it. After opening (= letting in new bacteria) you have to refrigerate the open jar and use it up. But, if kept refrigerated it should still last 6-8 weeks that way as well.

Pectin is a natural setting agent found in most fruits (some more than others) and in the seeds of citrus fruits; therefore the seeds are added to the fruit mixture for their setting properties. If you stand fruit and water mixture with seeds overnight before cooking, total cooking time will be reduced and you will have extracted maximum pectin.

The Science Bit

Basically, to make jam, jelly or marmalade you need fruit, sugar, natural pectin and acid. Mostly you will get the acid and pectin from the fruit. Fruit which is sour in taste or under-ripe is likely to have a higher pectin levels. Fruits which are low in pectin such as pears can be mixed with higher pectin fruit, but in some cases, such as strawberries, it is a crime to ruin the flavour and better to accept the facts and add pectin. (Which is derived from apples anyway so nothing particularly nasty... just it feels like ‘cheating’)? Some recipes call for lemon juice to increase the acid.

Some fruit have most of the pectin in its seeds... so with marmalade, you tie the pips in a muslin bag and cook with the rest of the fruit then remove the bag and proceed.

When these ingredients are boiled together, and excess water boiled off, a chemical reaction happens at about 104 C and the mixture jells - "setting point". If the jam fails to set this is probably due to an imbalance of pectin to acid or not enough cooking happened and setting point was not reached. You can boil a bit more and test again, or add lemon juice or commercial pectin, depending on what you think the problem might be.

Sugar thermometers

You really don't need one to make jam, but they can be useful. If you do decide to get one, don't buy a conventional one with a liquid red bar because they are useless. All of them. Well that's my experience. You keep on cooking and it has not reached anywhere like the right temperature for your fudge or jam or whatever you are making, and then you realize it’s lying and you have long gone past the point and overcooked your recipe.

If you do make a lot of jams etc, you will soon learn to recognize the signs of setting point.

Its worth being extra careful about cleanliness. If you decide to go into a home business, The Government in Australia is very strict in what you can make as food and sell. (I would believe basically the same all over the World)

It's a little known fact that butter actually encourages mould growth in marmalade. So every time you spread toast with butter, then dip the same knife in the marmalade, you're pushing the marmalade into early expiry.

The use of aluminum cooking utensils is very harmful to health of a large number of people. As one does not, in medical practice, see and test many folks who are quite healthy, it is impossible to give an accurate figure of the number of people who are adversely affected by aluminum. But one thing is certain—of those patients who have come to doctors or hospitals, because their health is imperfect, about one in every two is what would be called aluminum sensitive. It seems likely that about one in every three of the population is aluminum sensitive. To these people the use of aluminum utensils in the kitchen is dangerous to a minor or major degree. In every such case aluminum acts as a slow insidious poison, leading on to greater and greater degrees of disease as time passes. The human body shows an extraordinary power to remain healthy. All the wonderful and mysterious processes which go on in the human body seem able to maintain their efficiency as if directed by some all-knowing power—as indeed and in truth, they are.

The Future

There is pressure from English food producers to officially change the name of 'marmalade' to 'orange jam'.

They believe that the younger generation is unfamiliar with the traditional name and wouldn't know what it is.

So what do you think?

Does marmalade need to get cool and become orange jam?

Tell us below

The world is going mad! Marmalade is Marmalade, a particular recipe. If it is changed it will just be something else. Make orange jam but keep marmalade. Easy. Why wouldn't kids know what marmalade is, it's been around longer than vegemite. Some things don't appeal to kids. Only adults.

WHAT CAUSES FOOD POISONING?

Food poisoning is caused by germs such as bacteria which are everywhere in raw or uncooked food, animals and man, unsafe water, dirty utensils, equipment and working surfaces. Main symptoms of food poisoning are usually diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain.

WHAT ARE BACTERIA?

Bacteria are small living organisms that you cannot see with your own eyes. There are three types of bacteria: useful ones for making cheese and yoghurt, spoilage ones and harmful disease-causing ones. Here we are concerned with the disease-causing bacteria which can multiply at room (warm) temperature into millions in just a few hours (for example, 1 bacterium can multiply and produce up to 17 million bacteria in just 8 hours).

HOW DO BACTERIA GROW?

Bacteria require food, moisture, warmth and time to grow and multiply. The food that we eat also support bacterial growth includes:

Meat and chicken stews and meat products (meat pies and sausages); and

Milk, cream, eggs and egg products (e.g. mayonnaise and egg sandwiches)

Rice, pap and gravy

The above foods require handling in a hygienic manner, at the right temperature and proper cooking.

How Do You Avoid Bacteria from Growing and Multipying?

Cook food thoroughly and keep it hot until served. Do not keep cooked food at room temperature for more than 3 hours.

For those jars you may use when you have not purchased your own.

Citro Clean removes the tackiness from a previous label. It is a Bio degradable multi-purpose cleaner. Citro Clean is classified as a commercial grade disinfectant. I would recommend the use of it in cleaning the outside of your jars. I do not know the name if purchased overseas.

I know you will love Franks Fantasitic Farmalade (Marmalade)

If you do tell your friends, If you do not likeFranks Fantasitic Farmalade, (Marmalade) tell me