Anna's Orange Marmalade | Ina Garten - Recipe Diaries (2024)

FAQs

Why do you soak oranges overnight for marmalade? ›

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.

Jamie Oliver Orange Marmalade is made with oranges, grapefruit, water, calcium water, lemon/lime juice, and honey/sugar. Peel, chop, and simmer fruit mix, add calcium water, and stir in pectin-sugar mixture. Fill jars and seal for a homemade citrus delight.

You usually juice the citrus fruit and if whole peels are used they are repeatidly covered in water and boiled (changing the water 2-3 times) to leach out the bitter compounds. At the last go you add your sugar ,reserved juice and everything alse.

Is marmalade just orange jam? No, orange jams use the entire fruit by crushing, pureeing and cooking, whereas marmalades consist of the citrus peel, (not the whole fruit).

A Marmalade to Make

When it comes time to cook the oranges with sugar and water, it can be helpful to add the juice of a whole lemon, which contains pectin, to help the jelly set. Once the nappe point is reached (when the syrup coats the back of a spoon nicely), the hot marmalade is ready to be jarred.

4 tips to make your marmalade great

Historically, and even today, the best fruit for the job is a Seville orange, a sour-bitter variety that's used as a souring agent in many Caribbean and Latin American cuisines in lieu of lemons or limes.

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.

Increase the heat and bring up to the boil but do not stir while the marmalade is boiling. After about 5 mins the marmalade will start to rise up the pan (it may drop back and then rise again) and larger bubbles will cover the surface.

This is a process of color loss and does not mean the jam or jelly is going bad. The browning starts at the top of the jar and slowly works its way down. If your jars were properly sealed and the seal is still intact, the jam or jelly, although not as pretty as it once was, is safe to eat.

Why is my homemade marmalade bitter? ›

Use Valencia oranges if you can find them – if not, regular navel oranges are fine too. The main secret in producing a sweet (instead of bitter) marmalade is to reduce the amount of white pith, seeds, and membranes.

Once the sugar is dissolved, a boil to a set takes an average of 5-7 minutes. Prolonged boiling times, up to 30 minutes, a common recommendation in food magazines often results in syrupy, caramelised marmalade, a ruined pan and evidence of an unreliable recipe.

In terms of health, like its jam and jelly cousins, its healthiness largely depends on the amount of sweetness in the ingredients. However, marmalade's citrus base provides a boost of vitamin C and other antioxidants.

The three fruits in question: orange, grapefruit and lemon come together in our original recipe to create a refreshing, yet complex citrus marmalade that won't fail to bring a little sunshine to breakfast time, even here in the north of England.

The marmalade consists of the fruit peel, sugar and water. The bitter peel is what gives marmalade its characteristic bitter flavor. It is a good source of dietary fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. These nutrients support good health in various ways.

Insufficient water and too short a cooking time will fail to soften the peel and extract the pectin necessary for a good set. The weight of sugar in a traditional marmalade is twice the weight of fruit for a balanced flavour.

Too much stirring can lead to a cloudy marmalade and it will reach setting point faster if left alone. Experienced marmalade makers know when the setting point has been reached by looking and listening, but newbies will need a thermometer.