Marmalade

I've been making my own marmalade for a couple of years now, and although I say it myself, it's not bad! I like to use a variety of different fruits - and I include loads of ginger. Up until now I've added a glass of Cointreau just before bottling, but I since I don't have any left I shall use Benedictine.

Recipe:
1.6g citrus fruit - 1kg Seville oranges plus a grapefruit, 3 lemons (I couldn't buy just the one!) and a lime 
500g crystallised ginger
2.5kg sugar
1.75ltrs water  

So far I've spent about 40 minutes slicing up the fruit and removing the pips

Boiled for a couple of hours and ready to be cut into strips

I then boiled the chopped up the fruit for a couple of hours, and, when the mixture cooled, I spent another 40 or so minutes cutting the fruit into strips. 

Just needs the ginger and sugar

Both quite tedious jobs, but they have to be done.

(Updated, January 2013 to say that now, instead of cutting up the raw fruit, I've found that cooking it first makes it much easier to chop, and saves a heck of a lot of time!)

I've never used the pips wrapped in muslin method - I prefer to blitz the pips in the microwave and strain the liquid into the marmalade.

I've now got to chop up the ginger into smaller lumps - another job I'm not looking forward to!

Thursday evening - ginger all chopped up. However, whilst I was doing this I let the fruit catch on the bottom of the pan (it's not the greatest) and had to spend half an hour - or more - scrubbing the black off!

This marmalade task is dragging out, partly because I'm combining it with painting the bedroom! :)

Hope to finish it tomorrow!

Friday evening I managed to complete the task.

Once I got the marmalade to a rolling boil it took about half an hour and about 8 tests before I was satisfied. 

To sterilise the jars I placed about a centimetre of boiling water in each jar and boiled them for a few minutes in the microwave.

Once I'd filled all the bottles and put the lids on I turned them upside down to seal the tops. I also added 1 dessertspoon of Benedictine to 4 of the jars (the ones with a B on them), just to see how what it's like. (I've previously only used Cointreau, but I've run out!) If I like it, I'll add it to the other jars.

The gap remains at the bottom of the jars - as you can see with the one on the left

In total, I've now got 4.7 kilos of marmalade - should last me until the next Seville orange season. :-)