Marlene's Scrumptious Orange Marmalade

Seriously. I love food. I love to eat, I love to experiment with food, I love reading about food, I love talking about food. I even love taking photos of food.

One day many years ago, I came across this book, "Fine Preserving," written by Catherine Plagemann and annotated by M.F.K. Fisher. I loved it. And here is one of the first goodies I made - orange marmalade. Absolutely scrumptious. Last weekend, here in Nairobi, I made it again. Try it. :-D You will need:

Fresh oranges, California or Valencia or Navel (your desired number)
Sugar
Water
Tradition has it, they say, that orange marmalade is Scotch marmalade and is made only from the somewhat bitter Seville orange (go figure: Spanish oranges made into Scotch marmalade). But these bitter oranges are somewhat hard to find. For just plain good old but equally scrumptious orange marmalade, I use either the clear golden-skinned California oranges usually stamped Sunkist or the Valencias or the Navels. Here, I used Californians.
 
For this recipe, I used three nice golden oranges.

(Hmmm, I suddenly remembered this Spanish fairy tale about a handsome prince who stole three golden oranges from the Forbidden Garden... It was in Volume 5 of our ten-volume "The Children's Hour" book series. Will see if I can still unearth that beautiful fairy tale.... But back to marmalade making!) 

First, peel the thin colored outer skin from your desired number of oranges, in my case, three oranges. Slice the peel finely. Next, chop the pulp finely. 

Remove the seeds, if any, and put them into a little cloth bag, if desired, for a deeper flavor. Add to the peel and pulp mixture.
 


.






















Cover the oranges with water three times their bulk and let stand overnight.












On the second day, cook mixture, fast and furious (so to speak), for 20 minutes and cool for 24 hours. You can see the little bag of seeds on the left side of the picture below. And by the way, the scent of the orange mixture is simply amazing, better than any scented candle or aromatherapy oil anytime...

 
On the third day, carefully measure 1 cup of juice and fruit to 3/4 cup of sugar.



Cook quickly until the mixture passes the old-fashioned jellying test. (Please see below.) If the oranges are soft and ripe, add about 1 tablespoon fresh tart lemon juice per 4 cups just before removing the marmalade from the stove.

Cool, put into sterilized jars and seal with paraffin. (And don't forget to remove the bag of seeds!)

Enjoy! :-D

*Old-fashioned jelly test:
Put a saucer in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator. (If you live somewhere Arctic in winter, well, just put your saucer out the window!) As soon as the marmalade starts to thicken, dab a little of the mixture in the cold saucer. If the marmalade holds its shape and is no longer runny, congratulations. Your marmalade is ready

By the way, our kitchen tablecloth is the lovely Maasai shuka (blanket) bought from a roadside stall in Karen, Nairobi, Kenya, white porcelain cup is Woolworths Essentials, and that lovely lovely earthenware plate is from the Spinner's Web shop located at the Viking House, Waiyaki Way, Nairobi, Kenya. And no, I'm not being paid to write this! I just love their stuff.