Clementine Marmalade Recipe [Homemade Orange Marmalade] - Celebration Generation (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret ingredient in marmalade? ›

Pectin is key

“Mandarin marmalade is harder to make; mandarins don't have as much pectin. Lemons are really good. A lemon and ginger marmalade's a really nice one to make, lots of pectin, so that one will set easily.

Tie the muslin square into a little bag and add it to the bowl. Make sure everything is immersed in the water. Leave to soak overnight or for several hours if possible. This helps to extract pectin from the fruit and soften the peel, which will reduce the amount of cooking.

If the proportions of fruit, acid, pectin, water and sugar in your pan are not balanced, the marmalade will be unlikely to set. Nine times out of ten, marmalade fails to set if the recipe does not have a precise weight of ingredients.

The well-known version is made from bitter orange. It is also made from lemons, limes, grapefruits, mandarins, sweet oranges, bergamots, and other citrus fruits, or a combination. Citrus is the most typical choice of fruit for marmalade, though historically the term has often been used for non-citrus preserves.

Caster sugar is the one to avoid. The crystals are too fine, which is great for baking but they will dissolve too quickly when making marmalade. Granulated sugar is a good choice. The large crystals will dissolve quickly and cleanly, resulting in a clear, amber liquid that best shows off your perfectly floating peel.

Lemons contain a very high amount of pectin, which naturally sets and thickens the marmalade.

too much headspace, or bubbles left in the jam before processing; not enough liquid to cover bits of food/fruit; or. not enough processing time.

What's the ratio of sugar to fruit in marmalade? Because of the tartness of a Seville orange, the ratio of sugar to fruit in marmalade is 2:1.

Too often the weights of fruit and sugar are unbalanced, for example listing equal quantities of fruit and sugar. The volume of water is often insufficient to soften the peel before adding the sugar. The type and method used with a muslin bag fails frequently to release enough pectin, crucial when making marmalade.

If you cook it for too long at a high temperature, the natural pectin breaks down and no longer acts as a setting agent and the sugar polymerises into toffee. The way to make any set jam or marmalade is to simmer the fruit gently until it develops your desired level of softness.

Can you reboil marmalade if it doesn't set? ›

As you have made a successful batch I doubt that it is because you didn't squeeze the muslin bag sufficiently so it's likely that it wasn't boiled enough. The size of the oranges shouldn't make any difference. You can re-boil it. You will need to empty the marmalade into the pan and add the juice of a lemon.

Tim Nind's Seville Orange and Ginger Marmalade, Dalemain Award Winner 2023. Selected from a wide variety of entries from all over the world, Tim Nind's Seville Orange and Ginger Marmalade has been crowned the winner of the 2023 Dalemain Marmalade Homemade Double Gold Award.

Is marmalade healthier than jam? Both jam and marmalade are marginally healthier than jelly, which is made with fruit juice, so doesn't have any fibre from the fruit pieces. Marmalade and jam have similar nutritional properties making them pretty much the same in terms of healthiness.

The jam needs to settle and thicken slightly for 15min in the pan so the peel will be suspended throughout the marmalade. If you pot while it's hot, the peel will float to the top of the jars.

Adding acid in the form of fresh lemon or lime juice is important for two reasons: First, it makes for a more well-balanced jam, returning some of the acidity lost with the addition of sugar. Second, pectin needs acid to properly activate, or firm up.

Baking soda is slightly alkaline and helps to break down the peels, shortening the time it takes to cook and soften them. You do not have to use it to make good marmalade, but it helps shorten the cooking process.

To prevent scum forming on the top of your jam, add a knob of butter to your fruit at the same time as you add the sugar, we recommend 20 grams per 1 kilogram of fruit. Note: Scum is nothing sinister, it is only air bubbles that are created during the cooking process, they will not ruin your jam/marmalade if they form.

Citric acid is added to jams to lower the acidity and enable gel formation, especially in products with high carotenoid content. The role of citric acid in jam is to increase the stability of cyanidin-3-glucoside (C3G) and enhance its antioxidant capacity.