Delicious homemade orange marmalade recipe

Easy homemade orange marmalade

If you love marmalade, you’ll surely love my homemade orange marmalade recipe. It’s a quick recipe for making delicious and easy homemade orange marmalade. Follow this detailed recipe and video and you could soon be making orange marmalade at home with confidence.

The basic orange marmalade recipe is as simple as it gets, needing just three ingredients – oranges, sour limes or lemons, and sugar. Just a couple of things to remember. First, the amount of sugar you have to use depends on a number of factors. The two most important ones are 1) how sweet or sour or bitter your oranges are; and 2) the quantity of juice and pulp you get from the oranges. In my recipe for easy homemade orange marmalade, the weight of sugar I use is around 85% of the weight of the orange pulp and juice. And I like to use sweet, juicy oranges like Kinnows. This recipe will give you a tasty marmalade that’s not too sweet and not too bitter either. However if you prefer a more distinct citrusy taste, you could reduce the sugar by around 50g, and if you want the marmalade to be sweeter, add an extra 50g of sugar to the amount mentioned in the recipe.

The second point to remember is that marmalades firm up a lot more than jams do on cooling. When your marmalade is done (the saucer test is a good one for checking for doneness), the marmalade mix will still be somewhat runny, rather than like a jelly, when you take if off the heat.

Now that you have all the essential information, go ahead and make some flavourful orange marmalade at home for your family. Some other recipes with oranges you’ll find here are my soft and tasty orange cake and eggless orange cake. You might like to check these out too.

Ingredients

800g (5 Nos) Kinnow oranges

(400g / Approx. 1½ cup orange pulp and juice)

350g granulated sugar (1½ cup + 1 ½ tbsp)

1 sour lime / lemon

(Makes 500g of orange marmalade)

Procedure

1. Scrub the peel and wash the oranges well. Wipe them dry.
2. Slice 4 of the oranges into quarters. Separate the peel from each quarter. Retain 10 of the pieces of orange peel (from 2 ½ oranges) and discard the rest. Scrape off the bitter white pith from each of the pieces separating it from the rind. Discard the pith and retain only the bright orange part of the peel (also called zest). Finely slice the zest into juliennes.
3. Put the sliced zest into a bowl of boiling hot water. Cover the bowl and set it aside for around 30 – 40 minutes. This will help soften the zest and also take away some of its bitterness.
4. Pull off the stringy stuff from each orange quarter and place it in a bowl. Then slice off the thick part at the top of the orange segments and place this too in the same bowl. Separate the thin membrane and the pips (seeds) from each segment and place these too in the bowl with the stringy stuff and seeds. All of this is rich in pectin, and shouldn’t be discarded like the bitter pith, because it is this natural pectin that will help the marmalade to set properly. Transfer all of the membranes, strings, and pips to a square of cheesecloth or muslin. Instead of cheesecloth or muslin you could also use a thin, cotton kitchen napkin. Draw the ends of the napkin together and tie it into a bag.
5. Collect the fleshy part of the orange fruit in another bowl.
6. Next, extract the juice from the fifth orange and strain this into the bowl with the fruit pulp. Now weigh the bowl and find out the weight of the fruit pulp and juice. This turned out to be 400g.
7. Extract the juice from the sour lime and strain this too into the bowl.
8. Next, drain off the water from the bowl with the sliced zest. Add the zest too to the fruit pulp and juice.
9. Put a couple of saucers in the freezer to chill them.
10. Then to a pot add ½ a cup of water and 350g of sugar. Stir this on high heat till the sugar dissolves. Then lower the heat to medium and add the fruit pulp, juice, and zest to the pot. Give the contents a stir and then put the muslin bag into the pot.
11. Once the marmalade mix starts boiling, stir it every few minutes.
12. After around 15 minutes (when the marmalade mix is still runny) squeeze out the liquid from the muslin bag. Take the bag out of the pot and continue heating the marmalade.
13. Once the marmalade cooks for another 10 minutes, turn off the heat, and check it for doneness by putting a teaspoon of it on one of the chilled saucers. Wait for 30 seconds to a minute, then tilt the saucer slightly and if the marmalade runs freely, then it needs to be cooked a little longer. If it flows just a little bit and when you run your finger through it, it leaves a clear track, and you find the marmalade has the consistency of a soft gel, it’s done.
14. Let the marmalade cool down a little for around 15 minutes and then pour it into a sterilised jar. It will seem to be thin at this stage, but it will thicken as it cools further. When it’s just warm, put the lid on the jar. Let the marmalade jar sit on your kitchen counter overnight. If you check the texture of the marmalade the next day, you’ll find it has firmed up considerably. It will firm up even more when stored in the fridge.
15. Just in case you overcooked the marmalade and it’s not easily spreadable, transfer it back to a pot, and add in a quarter cup of water. Bring it to a boil, let it simmer for a couple of minutes and then turn off the heat. Place a teaspoon of the marmalade on a saucer and then chill it in the freezer for 5 minutes. Do the chilled saucer test to check that it’s done. If it’s not done yet, simmer the marmalade for a couple of minutes more and repeat the test.
16. The marmalade will stay good at room temperature for two to three weeks and in the fridge for several months.

Enjoy!