The maths of marmalade

[attimes_bracing]

I have spent today being a victim of my mother's shopping habits from years back and more than five counties away.  She would make marmalade in February and whenever she saw Seville oranges, which have a very short season, she would buy almost every net of them she could find.  I did the same this year and ended up with 6 kilos.

I use a lot of different jam recipes and don't have a particular formulae in my head about fruit to sugar rates or the pectin level of every fruit.  So when I got home and worked out that I needed for every 1.3KG of oranges, 2.6KG of sugar to counteract the bitterness of the Seville oranges.  In general and a fact I have now committed to remember, is that the jam/sugar ratio is about even.

I managed to palm off 2 * 1kg boxes of oranges on to understanding friends and very soon the final batch of seville marmalade will be jarred.

Next year I will buy 3kg.  I blame this year's over purchasing on the fact they were labelled as one of my favourite Waitrose brands -  'cooks ingredients' which if I buy them, makes me a cook.  Stands to reason.

Jar of marmalade anyone?

Comments

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

There can never be too much marmalade! Go you!

[were-gopher.livejournal.com]

Some of the best marmalade I ever had was a jar of the MILs that got to the back to the shelf and was forgotten for at least a decade. Why not use your surplus output as a long term experiment in maturity.

[uitlander]

Homemade Orange Marmalade. Yum!

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Yes please!

I like unusual marmalades: not so much as a search for exotic flavours, more as a liking for zestier flavours than the oversweetened marmalades sold in shops.