This is a still-work-in-progress Orange Marmalade recipe that I am working on.

Yields 4-5 x 8oz (1/2 pint) jars

Ingredients

• 3 lbs of Seville oranges (aka bitter) (about 12 oranges)
• 4 cups water
• 2 lemons – 1 regular lemon and 1 Meyer lemon
• 4 to 5 cups white granulated sugar

Equipment needed

* 1 wide 5 or 6-quart pan (stainless steel or copper with stainless steel lining, not aluminum which will leach, hard anodized is okay)
* An electric or mechanical juicer (you can juice all the oranges by hand but it is much easier and less time consuming with a juicer).
* A sharp chef’s knife
* A candy thermometer
* A large (8 cup) measuring cup pourer
* 5 to 6 8-oz canning jars
* Potato peeler
* A muslin jelly bag (for the pectin), or a large (18″ diameter) round piece of muslin, or several pieces of cheesecloth that you can tie up into a bag

Notes

Prepare the fruit

1. Scrub the oranges clean, removing any stickers, and twigs. Cut the oranges in half. Take a sharp knife (you wouldn’t have anything else, would you?) and remove the outter skin, leaving the pith. It doesn’t have to be perfectly orange: it can have some white (pith) in it as well. Julienne the skin pieces. You want 4 C of peel in the end.
2. Juice the oranges. They should produce about 2 C of juice.
3. I have tried using a mandoline to remove the skin, but that just kept cutting my knuckles. The original recipe calls for removing the pith with a spoon, but I find that incredibly labor intensive and annoying. The knife way is the way to go.
4. Scoop out the seeds and membranes with a spoon or pumpkin scraper and place them in a bowl. They can be kind of juicy.
5. Juice the non-Meyer lemon, adding it to the orange juice. Scrape out the seeds and membrane and add them to the orange guts. If you have a Meyer lemon, slice off the skin, julienne, then add it to the orange peels, then juice and take out the innards accordingly.
6. Put the seeds and membranes (our source of pectin) into 4 layers of cheesecloth or a muslin bag. Secure it to the side of the pot, then put it on a LIGHT boil for 30 min until the peels are soft. Remove the pectin bag, then let it cool until you can touch it.
7. While letting it cool, prepare for the canning. Put 4 plates for checking into the freezer. Remove lids from jars, putting the lids and tops into a bowl. Put jars into a baking sheet to easily remove them from the oven when they are ready. Turn on oven to 200 F.
8. Milk the bag to get the pectin out once it has cooled. You are going to get 1-3 T out. Add it to the mixture.
9. Add 1/2 the sugar to the mixture, then add more to taste. If you use regular oranges, cut the sugar by half. They will not need as much. NOTE: the boiling down will bring out more sweetness later, so don’t make it “perfectly sweet”.
10. Place the jars in the oven. If your oven runs hot, put the jars in, turn off the oven, then take them out when they hit around 200 degrees. You do NOT want to get the jars any hotter than 220, since the jam will boil straight out of the jars and cause the jars to crack. I had them up to 350 and that is exactly what they did. Yes, learn from my mistakes. Please.
11. Heat mixture to rapid boil. It takes 15-30 minutes for the jam to set. You want to get the jam to 220-222 F.
12. Remove the (now sterlized) jam jars from the oven. Pour boiling water over lids.
13. Can ’em, then wait for that sweet popping sound as they all seal.

Adapted from http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/seville_orange_marmalade/