Recipe: Orange Marmalade
5 April 2006, 11:45 PM

It's been a while since I posted a recipe here, but I think this one was worth the wait. This spring an orange tree in my parents backyard produced an over-abundance of gorgeous looking, but sour, fruit. Perfect for making marmalade.

After scouring the web for a recipe (and finding no two alike) I came up with my own recipe:

Orange Marmalade
12 large, heavy sour oranges (Seville oranges work well for this)
1/8 tsp baking soda
6 cups sugar
2 boxes pectin powder

Day one: Juice the oranges into a glass bowl. Cover and refrigerate. Scrape the membranes, seeds, remaining pulp and white pith from the inside of the orange peel, getting rid of as much of the pith as possible. Using clean kitchen shears, cut the half peels into thirds and then into thin strips. (Alternatively, you can use a vegetable peeler to get thin strips from the orange peels before juicing them. I kinda like how the thicker stuff came out.) Put strips into glass bowl, cover with water and refrigerate overnight.

Day two: Boil the cut peels in water and baking soda for 45 minutes. Discard water, replace with fresh water and bring to a boil. Boil peel again for another 45 minutes. Repeat until peels are tender and no longer bitter. Drain. Cover peels in a glass bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Day three: Measure three cups of peels. Add two cups of juice, adding water if necessary. Add two boxes of pectin. Bring to a boil. Boil until juice is reduced by at least half. (there should be very little juice.) Add 6 cups of sugar. Bring to roiling boil, then boil for exactly one minute. Remove from heat. Ladle in clean, sterile, preferably hot jars.

Voila!