'Ma Made' Cheat's Marmalade

If you've ever tried making your own marmalade, you'll know it's a long, laborious and messy process. We have to dissect the oranges, faff about with muslin, peeling pith and scraping seeds. We're finding sticky bits in the kitchen for a full week afterwards. If you make it this way, and enjoy it, I raise my flat cap to thi!

When I started getting heavily into preserving, I kept noticing this Enticing Orange Tin on the baking aisle, called Ma Made (this isn't in any way sponsored by Hartley's by the way, I just wanted to give it a bash and figured you all might find it useful).

Ma Made is a tin of ready prepared Seville oranges that says 'Just add sugar and water'.

On closer inspection, it's got added water, citric acid and pectin - all stuff you'd have to add yourself if you were making it from scratch anyway. Although we'd likely use lemon juice instead of buying a separate citric acid.

I've used the Enticing Orange Tin twice now - the first was virginal, made exactly to the recipe on the tin. The second time I experimented with adding a splash of whisky. Both times I got a beautiful , big batch of marmalade that tasted better than anything I've ever bought. My first batch was made almost 2 years ago - I gifted a jar to someone who kept it in a cupboard instead of the fridge, and 4 months after opening, it still wasn't showing any signs of mould. So yeah, a very good shelf life with this stuff.

Costings:

At the time of writing this, it's £2.60 for the Ma Made. We need to add 4lb of sugar - granulated is ideal and is currently about £2 for 4lb. I chucked a nob of butter in as well. So your bare materials are less than £5.

We then need jars, lids, labels if you want something posher than a Sharpie, power, and time - from washing the jars out, to having them filled, pots washed and sticky splashes all sanitised, it was maybe an hour.

I got 8x300ml jars from each batch. So considering the quality, and how long it appears to keep, I'd say it's well worth an hour and a fiver. You don't have to buy new jars and lids, just clean ones, and don't re-use lids that smell like onions or mustard. The smell never fully leaves. Keep those for chutneys.

My business baker followers please note: There are strict regulations around selling jams and preserves of any kind - please don't get yourself in trouble. Email your local council food safety team to ask for advice, after having a read here and deciding for yourself if it's worth the extra hassle.

Tips:

You need a really big pan - high sided is safest because marmalade burns aren't pleasant. If you want to start making jams and the like on a regular basis, get a really good non-stick pan and silicon tools to protect the non-stick coating.

You can add some extra flavour if you're feeling fancy. A teaspoon of ginger, a little bit of cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom, cloves for Christmas maybe?

Just before you pour it into the jars, you can add a bit of booze - whisky, brandy, rum and gin all work well. I added about 30ml of whisky and it's not too strong a flavour - I would say you could add up to 50ml if you like a good kick.

You can swap the granulated sugar for caster, demerara or light brown soft - you'll just get a slightly darker marmalade with the brown sugars.

Method:

I don't want to risk copyright trouble by typing out the recipe from the can, but to give you the gist:

1. Wash your jars and lids in hot soapy water and rinse well. Put the jars in the oven at 100C to dry and sterilise. Put a small plate in the freezer.

2. Tip the tin contents into a big pan, add the water and sugar.

3. Keep stirring until it comes to the boil.

4. Reduce heat to low/medium and leave it boiling for another 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you've got a lot of foam, add a knob of butter and keep stirring clockwise - a figure of 8 will just create more foam. That tip was learned from Pam the Jam!

5. Do the wrinkle test - get your plate out of the freezer and drop a little bit of the marmalade onto it. Leave it for a minute, then push your fingernail through the blob. If it wrinkles, it's ready. If not, give it a couple more minutes then repeat the test. The longer you boil, the firmer the marmalade will set. Once it's done, leave to stand for a few minutes.

6. Fill your warm jars. Be bloody careful - you can do this from a heat proof jug, with a wide funnel if you have one. Or ladle in, keeping yourself a safe distance from splashes.

7. Wipe around the top of the jar - if you leave spillage there the lid won't seal properly. Put the lids on tight, and flip the jar upside down until it cools - this sterilises the lid using the heat of the marmalade.

8. Label with the date of production and store in a cool cupboard or pantry.

   
   

Ways to use it:

It isn't just for toast!

You can glaze chicken or pork, or the Christmas gammon. I've got a nice recipe for Sticky Marmalade Chipolatas here.

Warm it up an brush over a loaf cake or fruit cake, or use as a pancake filling with Chocolate hazelnut spread.

I've also heard it's good on a cheese toastie but I'll let you lot try that and get back to me!