Approx cost: €3.00
Approx calories (per tbsp): ~50
Approx preparation time: 1 hour
If you’re unlucky enough to buy a particularly sour batch of clementines/mandarines during the holiday period, or just get sick of eating them, here’s a fantastic way of using them up so you don’t have to waste them. As long as the canning jars are properly sterilised at the end, the marmalade will last for ages and is great on toast, croissants, etc. It’s a really fast, simple recipe – not at all like some recipes which call for boiling up the marmalade for hours on end. Total cooking time for this really is only about 40 minutes so it’s definitely not something you have to devote any great amount of time to. This post also has a video directly below.
Ingredients
Ingredients you'll need for this dish
– ~1 kilo Oranges/Clementines/Tangerines/Mandarines etc
– ~1 kilo Sugar
– ~0.8 litres water
You’ll also need
Food Processor
Canning Jars
Instructions
- Start by cleaning the oranges really well. You can either scrub them with a nail-brush, or rub them well with your hands in hot water.
- Pick out one or two oranges which have the best skin, peel them and and set the peel aside. Chop the rest of the oranges (and the peeled ones) finely and transfer to your Food Processor and blend for several minutes until a smooth pulp – don’t worry too much if there are still lumps inside.
- While the oranges are being mixed, take the peel you set aside earlier and chop very finely. Heat a saucepan on a high heat and then transfer the orange pulp and peel to the pan. Use the 0.8 litres of water to rinse out the food processor bowl, and then pour the water into the orange pulp. Cover and boil for 20 minutes.
- Uncover the mix and pour the sugar into the marmalade bit by bit, stirring well while doing so. Once all the sugar has been added, leave uncovered and boil vigorously for ~15 minutes. While the marmalade is boiling, place a plate into the freezer. Wash out 2 or 3 canning jars thoroughly and place upside down into an oven around 160 degrees Celsius for around 15 minutes.
- When the marmalade has boiled for around 20 minutes, remove the plate from the freezer – spoon some marmalade onto the plate. Tilt the plate a little to allow the marmalade to touch the cool plate and using a small spoon, part the marmalade to see if it’s setting or not. If not then just boil it for longer. When it’s ready, take out the canning jars and spoon the marmalade immediately into the jars. Fit the rubber seals (if they’re that type of jar) and then seal up. Allow to cool before storing away (or eating)!
Nom nom
Last and only time I attempted to do marmalade I boiled the thing way too much and turned everything into someweird caramel. When would you recommend stop cooking the marmalade?
Once you've added in the sugar it only needs to boil fast for about 20-30 minutes, sometimes a little more. You can check if it's ready by spooning some onto a cold plate and checking if it's starting to set!
hi I just watched your video and would like to know don’t you have to water bath or do you invert the jar until cool?? also how longe is the shelves life thank you ?
Hi Brenda,
I’ve always made jams in the way shown in the video – I simply always did what my mother and grandmother always did.
I don’t boil the jars, but sterilise them in the oven first. You then pour the hot jam into the hot jars.
I don’t personally invert my jars while they cool – my mother uses small plastic discs which are sealed around the opening with a rubber band, they get sucked down as the jam cools and go concave, it’s really cool to see.
My jars usually have metal tops with a button which gets depressed (sucked in) as it cools, so you know it’s an airtight seal.
Shelf-life, we usually eat things pretty quickly, but I’ve happened across some older jars before and I can say that they’re fine after a good year. As long as everything is sanitary then things should keep for at least this long, if not longer, especially when stored in a cool, dark place. If the seal is bad you’ll likely see mould growing after a while, so make sure your jars and lids are good!
Definitely going to follow this recipe as methods I have tried in the past have been messy and tedious. It looks really good.
Just watched the video of the marmalade. I bought oranges on sale with the intention of making marmalade with them, thank you so much for the quick overview! (And I’ll have to bake bread to go along with the fresh jelly!)
Thanks so much Heather – so nice of you to drop by! If you’re going to make bread too, may I suggest this one? I found it to really be incredibly good!
Well my friend, thank you for this recipe, I follow it step by step, perfect, now I have, an excellent Christmas gift to share with family and friends. Thank you un millon.
Angel
Thanks Angel – so glad it worked out well. If you liked this one you might also appreciate my lemon marmalade recipe too – that’s really lovely 🙂
Hello Charles, hope you’re enjoying your blogging break! I just posted my marmalade and thought I’d check your blog and see if you had posted marmalade. If you get a chance, pop in and take a look at mine. Doesn’t it make the kitchen smell wonderful!
Hi Jean, totally agree – my favourite marmalade is dark stuff which is cooked for a really long time. Of course, this one I like too, but the dark stuff just smells amazing. You’ve inspired me – I think I’ll make some on the weekend. It’s been AGES since I had some marmalade! Thanks for dropping by!
Hi Charles, I just posted Tangerine Marmalade so wanted to check all the blogs I visit today for marmalade. It’s amazing to me how there are sooooo many methods for the same simple set of ingredients!
Oops, just noticed you wrote again – thanks for letting me know. I’ll check out your post in a bit. Would you believe, this recipe is my most popular recipe on YouTube. Almost 58,000 views to date, and the video is horrendously bad… one of my early attempts! 😀
Hi Charles,
Thank you for this great recipe. I made some of your marmelade yesterday. It was really easy and turned out very well. We’ll never use store-bought again.
Marianne
P.S subtitles made life a lot easier.
Hi Marianne, I’m really happy to hear this! Thanks for letting me know 🙂