Friday, January 28, 2011

Bitter Orange Marmalade



Well, the orange blossom water seemed to do the trick (along with Moro blood oranges which are a bit less sweet than navels). The colour is certainly helped with the addition of a few Moros, and brown sugar. Overall, I'm pleased with how this turned out. Traditional Seville orange marmalade, it is not, but living in the American Midwest, this is about as close as I can get it.

I'm always troubled by the cut of marmalade (yeah, you probably have better things to worry about). Should I cut it fine, should I use thick? Combination? I settled this by leaving the lemon slices a bit on the thick side, and cutting the orange peel quite fine. I really like big hunks of peel in my marmalade, but my family...sigh. They're so freaking genteel. Oh, they never raise their voices, or behave in an impolite manner, and they prefer thin cut marmalade.

Up next-Pink grapefruit marmalade with lavender. Then, I think I'll save the last of the oranges for a batch of pickled orange slices with cinnamon, cloves and malt vinegar (sounds horrible, but you'll have to trust me on this one).

I followed the marmalade recipe in the previous post, but used half Moro oranges and a generous splash (about 1 tablespoon) of orange blossom water at the end before bottling the marmalade.

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