In southern Europe the orange trees beautifully decorate the streets alleys.\u00a0This is their season! And as long as it is, I want to make enough orange marmalade to cover up the seasons that lack them. \u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Last week I found the first Sicilian blood oranges at the store. Oh, you should have seen my excitement! I decided right there that these should be definitely part of the game, adding color and a different intense flavor to it!<\/span><\/p>\n

On my way home I already started thinking about how to decorate the jars. With the kind of job that I have, where creativity is out of place, I look forward even more to get a little creative in my spare-time and to finally dedicate my time to those things I really enjoy doing. We can’t always choose what we do for a living, but it’s our free choice to choose our hobbies, right? ;)<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway..I tried two different versions: One with regular sugar, the other one with jam sugar. Jam sugar already contains the required amount of pectin<\/em>, that helps thickening the marmalade. Hence, it speeds up the cooking time. Pectin is not the only ingredient of jam sugar though. Preservatives are included most of the time, too. And that is the reason why I wanted to give it a try with regular sugar. The lack of pectin can be easily compensated by adding additional lemon juice. The only downside is the cooking time. Be ready to cook the fruit for about 1 hour.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, I decided to add a second mini project to the marmalade: The labels! Whether the jars are meant to stay on a shelf in our own kitchen or they are meant to be given away as homemade gifts to friends and family, don’t they just look so nice after being decorated? Plus, it’s so much fun to make them!<\/span><\/p>\n

I added to this post some samples of the labels that I made, ready to be printed out for your next marmalade project!<\/span><\/p>\n

Happy marmalade making :)<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Ingredients:<\/strong><\/p>\n

With regular sugar:<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

500 mg \/ 17\u00bd oz of oranges<\/span><\/p>\n

500 mg \/ 17\u00bd oz of sugar<\/span><\/p>\n

juice of 3 lemons<\/span><\/p>\n

zest of 1 orange<\/span><\/p>\n

With canning sugar \/ jam sugar:<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

500 mg \/ 17\u00bd oz of oranges<\/span><\/p>\n

sugar, according to package indication (1:1, 2:1 or 3:1)<\/span><\/p>\n

zest of 1 orange<\/span><\/p>\n

* \u00a0* \u00a0* \u00a0* \u00a0*<\/span><\/p>\n

Sterilize the jars. You can either ‘bake’ the previously washed and dried jars in the oven for 15 – 20 min at 120\u00b0C \/ 248\u00b0F, or you boil them for 5 – 10 min in a big pot with boiling water.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blend half of the oranges. Pour them into a big pot. Then add the other chopped half of oranges, the zest and sugar. (If you use regular sugar, stir in the lemon juice, too.)\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Bring to a boil, then keep cooking at medium to high heat (approx. 100\u00b0C \/ 212\u00b0F). 12 to 15 min if using jam sugar \/ aprox. 1h if using regular sugar. Adjust the heat in case it tends to boil over.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to make sure that the marmalade has cooked long enough, you can make a quick test by pouring half a teaspoon on a cold plate. If the marmalade gets firm within a few seconds, while moving the plate, it is ready to be filled into the jars.<\/span><\/p>\n

If the jars got cold again in the meantime, what you can do is fill them with hot water. As soon as you are ready to pour the marmalade inside, empty them quickly, right before you fill them with the marmalade. Make sure to leave a little space at the top.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seal them well with the lids. And put them upside down for about 5 min.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then flip them back again. Cover the jars with a kitchen towel and let them rest until they cool off.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prep Time: \u00beh – 1\u00bd<\/span><\/p>\n

Makes 3 medium-sized jars<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In southern Europe the orange trees beautifully decorate the streets alleys.\u00a0This is their season! And as long as it is, I want to make enough orange marmalade to cover up the seasons that lack them. \u00a0 Last week I found the first Sicilian blood oranges at the store. Oh, you should have seen my excitement! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"template-page-builder.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[252,254,210,251,250,253,213,71],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1022,"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/1022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediterranealicious.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}