Orange Honey Marmalade
Here is our journey to making and enjoying delicious orange honey marmalade. I hope you enjoy this sticky sweet treat as much as we do!
Equipment
- 1 slow cooker
Ingredients
- 8 oranges
- 2 cups honey
- 3 cups sugar
- 5 cups water
Instructions
- Start by washing your oranges well. We picked these oranges fresh from the citrus farm on a rainy day, so they were particularly dirty. Click here to see our visit to this beautiful Central Florida citrus farm.Then peel the oranges with a vegetable peeler. Be sure when peeling to only get the skin and not the pith. If you get too much pith on some of the peels, you can take a pairing knife and scrape the pith off of the back of the peel. My vegetable peeler worked great for this and the key was to not push too hard when peeling.Some marmalades call for long thin pieces of peel. I prefer my peel in smaller bits, so I chopped the peel into medium sized bits. You should have one cup of peel. Cook the peel in one cup of water for about an hour.
- While the peel is cooking, use a sharp knife to remove the pith from the oranges. Once the pith is removed, cut the oranges into slices for easier removal of the seeds and membranous part of the wall lining of the slice. Our oranges were loaded with seeds. So I took each orange slice and held it over my pot while I removed the seeds and large bits of membrane with my hands, so just the juice and pulp would go into my pot.Once you have the one cup of peel and your 8 oranges juice and pulp in your pot add 4 more cups of water and bring to a low boil.
- Then add your honey and sugar and stir frequently over medium high heat until all of the honey and sugar is dissolved. Reduce your heat to a low medium heat and cook with the lid on for 6 hours, stirring occasionally.Turn off the heat and let your marmalade mixture sit overnight. The next morning over medium heat and while stirring often, cook the marmalade with the lid off until the liquid has reduced almost by half. This took about 3 hours. You’re cooking it with the lid off to evaporate some of the liquid and make the marmalade thicker. You can continue cooking with the lid off until you have your desired thickness.One way that you can check with thickness is by taking a small spoonful of marmalade and placing it on a plate. Then place the plate in the freezer. After about 15 minutes, you can check the consistency of the marmalade on the plate. If it has jelled to your liking the marmalade is done cooking.