February is the time of the year to make marmalade as the new season of citrus fruit is in the shops. As well as using the traditional Seville oranges, marmalade can be made with limes, grapefruit or lemons, or any combination of the above.

I was inspired to make this recipe because I still have a bag of limes in the freezer, left over from a cheap box full I got at a car boot sale last spring. You can easily freeze all citrus fruit and use them to make marmalade later in the year if you wish.

This recipe is adapted from the marvelously utilitarian Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables, which although it looks like someone knocked it up on a photocopier is actually a mine of useful recipes and information.

See here for the Lime and Orange Marmalade recipe.

Recipe Costs

£1.92 750 g limes (about 12)
£2 750g seville oranges (about 10)
£2.56 2.75 kg granulated sugar
3 litres water
£6.48 Total

about £1.44 per kg of marmalade (about 60% of the cost of similar at tesco )

The fruit is halved and after squeezing out the juice the pips and membranes removed, I find a sharp edged spoon useful for this. The limes are a lot tougher than the Seville oranges and consequently had quite a bit of membrane left attached.

I put all the juice and insides into a sieve over the preserving pan, so that they are easily separated.

Once drained the membrane, pith and pips are put in a muslin bag and added to the pan, along with the chopped peel.

 Chopping the peel is actually quit a quick job, not half as time consuming as removing the insides. I've gone for a medium shread as I quite like a bit of bite on my toast.

The peel, juice and muslin bag are simmered for several hours (with the lid on) until the peel is soft.

After the muslin bag has done it's job helping to release all of the pectin contained in the membrane, pith and pips it is removed, I clip it to the handle with a clothes peg to allow it to cool before attempting to squeeze all the liquid out.

Sugar is added and mixed until dissolved, I always love the contrast of white sugar against the fruit.

The marmalade is then boiled until it reaches setting point, this took about 20 minutes, although will be different depending on how juicy your fruit was. With marmalade it helps to let it cool down slightly before potting into jars, this ensures the peel is evenly distributed and doesn't all sink to the bottom.
The small bubbles in this jar are probably due to it being a bit cool when poured.

The best thing about marmalade is you can eat it straight away, I'm enjoying the combination of different sized peel, the lime is a bit tougher than the orange which makes for a nice contrast.

Recipe Timings

1 hour preparing fruit
2 hours simmering
20 mins boiling
15 mins potting

Taste Test

I was concerned the taste of the limes would be lost, but they come through well giving this marmalade a fresher taste than if I'd just used Seville oranges.

image source wikimedia commons

1. The Seville Orange (Citrus aurantium), or sour orange, is native to southeastern Asia.

2. Arabs are thought to have carried it to Arabia in the 9th Century, and it had reached Spain by the end of the 12th Century.

3. For 500 years, it was the only orange in Europe and it was the first orange to reach the New World.

4. Seville Orange are usually smaller and harder than eating oranges

5. Seville Oranges are generally in season in the UK from December to February, they can however be frozen.

6. Seville Oranges are usually too sour to be enjoyed fresh, their greatest use is in Scotland and the UK for making marmalade.

7. The juice can also be used to flavour meat and fish, or fermented to make wine.

8. Oil extracted from the peel is used as a flavouring in the liqueurs Triple sec, Grand Marnier and Curaçao, and also as a commercial flavouring in sweets, ice cream, chewing gum, soft drinks, and pharmaceutical products.

9. In Mexico seville oranges are eaten cut in half, salted and coated with a paste of hot chili peppers.

10. For more information see the very informative article here.

When making marmalade last week I froze some unused lemon peel with the thought of using it for something constructive. After some thought, and research, I decided to have a go at candied peel, not something I'd usually even use.

Hopefully having some in the house will be useful when it comes to baking, and for mincemeat at Christmas if it lasts that long. I wanted to have a wider range of peel than just two lemons, so the bag in the freezer grew to contain the following:

Peel of three lemons - 170g (left over from marmalade making)
Peel of 1 grapefruit - 140g (a breakfast treat)
Peel of five oranges - 255g (a regular winter craving)
Peel of 2 limes - 100g (I wanted some green in the mix, so cooked Thai curry)

I pulled all this out the freezer in the morning so it was thawed when I came to prepare it.

There seemed to be several ways of preparing the peel, either repeated boiling and draining, or just prolonged boiling, but all recipes needed the peel to have the membranes scraped off and then be sliced. This took about 20 minutes, I wasn't too fussy about removing all the pith as I'd read it added to the succulency of the finished product, which made sense - the more pith, the more sugar could be soaked up.

Roughly following the recipe from Elise Bauer's Simply Recipes blog, I boiled all the peel 3 times draining in between.

See here for the candied peel recipe.

Recipe Costs

£0.00 665g left over citrus peel £1.39 1.5kg sugar
£1.39 Total
£1.63 per kg of Candied Peel (50% of the cost at Tesco)

I choose to use the above recipe as it had a nice adaptable way of measuring the sugar syrup - using cups as a volume measure. It also gave me a chance to use one of these lovely measuring cups from Nigella Lawson.

I had 6 cups of peel, which wasn't too tightly packed, in hindsight I should probally have packed it in a bit more, as I ended up with way too much syrup. Having surplus did mean that I wasn't concerned about the pan catching or drying out. I do also now have a bottle of citrus flavoured sugar syrup, which makes a nice drink with fizzy water. I may be tempted to try a gin fizz this weekend.
In went the peel to the syrup.

After two and a half hours of simmering the peel had turned translucent, so I drained it and left it on racks before dusting with granulated sugar. I'll be letting it dry out in a large bowl for a few days before packing into jars.

Recipe Timings

1 hrs Preparation 0.5 hr Draining and Dusting
0.5 hr Potting
2.5 hrs Cooking
48 hr Drying

Taste Test

It tastes wonderful, initially sweet with a citrus bite afterward, with also a real difference between fruits. The lime could have done with being a bit softer - more boiling next time. Being able to cut the peel to size will be excellent when cooking with it.

An exciting few days - making marmalade for the first time, something I've always fancied doing but never got round to. I think as it was I probably left it a bit late, luckily the local supermarket had bags of Seville oranges.
I promptly bought several bags and left them in a bowl for a while.

Researching recipes threw up a quandary, whether to use the 'whole fruit method' as recommended by Mary Cadogan on the BBC Good Food website, or to go with the 'slice the peel before simmering' version from my trusted "Good Housekeeping" Cookery Book.
In the end the second won out, purely because it was late in the afternoon and I didn't want to hang around waiting for oranges to cool before slicing them.

See here for the marmalade recipe.

Recipe Costs

£3.90 2kg Seville oranges
£0.60 2 Lemons
£2.51 2.7kg sugar
£7.01 Total
£1.55 per kg of Marmalade

First task was to juice the oranges and remove the pips and membranes, I microwaved the fruit for 30 seconds first (a good trick when juicing lemons) then after juicing scooped out the pulp with a cheap metal spoon (the cheaper the spoon the sharper the edge). I found a few cuts on my hands which I'd forgotten were there.

The pips and membranes went in the muslin, and the sliced peel was added to the water and juice along with the juice of two lemons (I froze the lemon peel, I'm sure it'll come in useful).
I was concerned that the slicing would take a long time, so went for a medium shred, but in the end in only took 10 minutes, thanks to a lovely sharp new knife I'd got for Christmas.

After boiling for several hours, reducing the liquid by half, I left the preserving pan on the top of the stove overnight. One of the recipes I'd read recommended this, as otherwise the whole process can take a whole day.
It was a glorious smell to come down to in the morning.

I'm always surprised at how much sugar you need to put in, but it's soon forgotten once it dissolves into a fragrant, deep coloured, sticky gloop.

Reaching setting point took about an hour, I fear I may have overcooked it slightly, I only reached 210 degrees C on the thermometer rather than the recommended 221, but didn't dare push it any further. The saucer test indicated I was ready to put it in jars, and the finished marmalade set fine. I feel I may need to rely less on the thermometer in the future.

As a treat I added a tablespoon of whisky to several of the small jars and stirred it in well. Opinion varies about when to add this, but as I only wanted it in a few jars it was easier to add at the end (although I can see it may affect the consistency) rather than while cooking. Also I couldn't see the point of losing the alcohol.

Recipe Timings

1.5 hrs Preparation
0.5 hr Potting

2 hr first cooking
1hr second cooking

Taste Test

As suspected the marmalade was slightly on the thick side, but still fine for spreading.
It's a lovely dark colour and less sweet (more tangy) than some you might get commercially.