We had a lot of oranges so I made marmalade today. When I made it last time, it was overcooked and it ended up being like crystallised orange rather than marmalade, so this time I was careful not to cook it too long.
Ingredients for Orange Marmalade:
- Orange
- Sugar: Half of the weight of oranges and their peel which you actually use
- Lemon Juice: 2 tablespoons
*I made around 400 ml of marmalade this time.
How to Make Homemade Orange Marmalade:
1. Rinse the Oranges well and peel them
2. Shave off the white part of the orange skin and slice them thin
3. Boil water, add sliced orange peel, cook for about 5 minutes on a medium heat in order to remove the bitterness
4. Drain them in a colander and rinse them with water
5. Remove the thin skin of the orange fruit as much as possible and cut it into small pieces. Squeeze juice from the thin skin separated from fruits.
6. Put orange peel, fruit, juice and half the weight of sugar of the actual orange that you cook and lemon juice in a saucepan and cook it for 10-20 minutes until it gets thick.
*At this point, you can put the removed thin skin or white parts of the orange peel in a cotton bag and simmer it together, in order to thicken it easily.
7. After it cools down a bit, put it in a sterilized container and store it in the refrigerator.
Note:
The white part of the orange peel contains bitterness. The more you remove this part, the less bitter the marmalade will be. If you like bitter marmalade, you can reserve some of them.
The white skin of oranges and lemon seeds contain dietary fibre called “pectin”, which gives a jam or marmalade consistency. Therefore, I put the seeds together with the lemon juice in a saucepan and simmered them together.
How Much Sugar is needed?
In theory, you need at least 40 % of the actual orange weight that you cook, which is the weight of the orange fruits and peel after you remove the white part and thin skins. If you don’t put enough sugar, your marmalade won’t get thick.
This time, when I weighed my orange fruits and peel just before I cooked them, it was around 380 grams, so I added 190 grams of sugar to cook.
