Try Our Seville Orange Mmmarmalade!

View fullsize

What makes our Seville Orange Marmalade quite possibly the best marmalade you’ll ever have? First, the fact that my mother-in-law taught me how to make it, who in turn learned to make it from her mother. This proves that my gran’s recipe is tried, tested and delicious! Yet, what truly makes our marmalade taste great, is the hand shredding, top quality ingredients and that we take no shortcuts. 

If that doesn’t convince you, my marmalade won a Bronze at the World Marmalade Awards (hosted in Cumbria, UK) and you will find it at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in November.

View fullsize

Why you’ll love it

Our marmalade is made from certified organic Seville oranges and they make all the difference. Aside from the health benefits, organic oranges have a better flavour as they have a slightly chunky peel so you get the sweet and the bitter combined, and set more quickly than non-organic oranges – leading to a better quality marmalade.  

The fresher your oranges are when you make your marmalade the better. Over ripe fruit tend to lose some of their pectin so you will have to cook your marmalade down too far in order to achieve set. Seville oranges are generally in season from January to February, so we spend a bit of time creating our marmalade then to ensure the best quality marmalade is produced.

The Process

We make our marmalade the traditional way, with the peel of the orange being hand shredded. If you are looking to enter your marmalade into competitions, you always want to follow the two-day process.  You will end up with a brighter marmalade that is more appealing from an appearance perspective for the judges, trust me as for the past two years I have had the pleasure of being a judge at the Mad for Marmalade Awards at Fort York.

Our marmalade uses all the parts of the orange. The skin is shredded and softened in water, the membrane and the seeds are added to the marmalade to release the natural pectin of the oranges and achieve the perfect set for the marmalade.

Orange You Glad You Tried It

While we believe there’s absolutely no wrong way to eat marmalade (straight from the jar?), we have a few suggestions for you to try out. Our marmalade tastes fabulous as a cheesecake topping and tastes equally as amazing on toast combined with a splash of butter.  Let your taste buds decide.

Interested in our products? Shop our selection.

Want to grow your food business? Manning Canning Kitchens can help!

Written by Farhana Choudry, Intern

The Road to the Royal

I am not sure what it is about entering preserves contests that I love so much. I think I have Mad for Marmalade, Crazy for Citrus to blame. It was the very first competition I ever entered and to my astonishment I came in 2nd in both categories that I entered and then to top it all off I won the amazing door prize. I left buzzing and smiling, and I have been hooked ever since.

At times, my preserves have placed poorly, but instead of being disappointed, I waited with anticipation for the judges cards to see if there would be some feedback. Something that would teach me more about the art of preserving. And other times I have won in a category that completely amazed me. Not because I didn't think I was deserving, but because it was something that at the time was out of my comfort zone

This year, when I received a message from the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair asking if they could highlight my journey on the Road to the Royal, I was so excited I could almost not respond to the email fast enough. I consider it a real honour to have been one of the 4 competitors across multiple categories chosen to be highlighted. 

This year will also be our first year having a booth selling our preserves at The Royal. So if you plan on visiting, be sure to drop by booth #2623 and say hi.

Marmalade, glorious marmalade!

Shredded Seville Orange Peel

I am admittedly a bit of a marmalade lover. And while, I love meyer lemons, blood oranges and the like, my one true love is the Seville Orange. I can get well and truly absorbed by the process of making marmalade. It is not something one does quickly. There is a process, a cadence to making a truly wonderful marmalade and I get excited in January as marmalade season approaches. I sharpen my knives, get my cheese cloth ready and sit and wait til I hear from my suppliers that Sevilles have arrived. 

And then me and my team all get into the marmalade rhythm. We embrace the blisters one gets from hand shredding the peel and we bask in the citrus smell coming from the kettles as it takes it's time to simmer down to perfection.

Seville Oranges have ARRIVED. I have seen them on the shelves is stores across the city ranging in price from $2.49/lb to $2.99/lb up from last years price of $1.99/lb. If you want to make lots of marmalade consider asking the produce manager at your local store to bring it in by the case. The lovely produce manager at my local Coppa's is more than happy to do it. Currently a case is $75/box.

Here are some wonderful marmalade recipes (not all made with Seville's in case you don't share my love) to get you started.

Lime Cilantro Marmalade - this recipe was created for an entry into Mad for Marmalade. It ended up winning a 2nd place ribbon. I love this marmalade with fish tacos. It has a nice bright citrus flavour that compliments fish very well. P.S. I am judging the competition this year, so if you come be sure to say hi!

Seville Orange Marmalade - If Christine Ferber is the 'Queen of Jam', then the title of 'Queen of Marmalade' goes to Vivien Lloyd. She is passionate about marmalade and shares my same adoration for the Seville as I do. This is a great recipe which gives you a clear, beautiful marmalade flavour as a result

Blood Orange and Vanilla Marmalade - If you missed it Amy launched a preserving cookbook earlier this year called The Canning Kitchen. It focuses on simple and small batch.

Mad for Marmalade

Every February for the past 8 years, there is a magical event that takes place at Fort York. I discovered it 3 years ago and have made it a must go to event ever since.

You walk into the barracks at Fort York and are instantly awed at the beauty of your surroundings. Not only is Fort York an amazing space for an event, but the volunteers pull together an extremely well organized day filled with great workshops, interesting speakers, tonnes of great door prizes and of course, the marmalade competition.

It will come as no surprise that the marmalade competition was what drew me to this event initially and it was the first event I ever entered. I was thrilled to walk away with two 2nd place ribbons. 

Last year I gave one of the workshops and this year I was chosen to be one of the judges for the competition. My partner in judging the Citrus Preserves category was a Tom Boyd. Tom is an avid preserver and has won numerous ribbons at The Royal Winter Fair, his most recent being 1st place for his Pear Ginger Lime Marmalade. 

We had the extremely difficult job of trying at least 8 different preserves made with citrus. Marmalade with Whisky, Pink Grapefruit marmalade with Brandy...my tastebuds were in heaven.

But my knees went weak when we had to judge best in show and we got to taste the Baking with Marmalade category. This pie had a crust that has been imprinted on my tastebuds for eternity.

Congratulations to all the marmalade winners, thank you to all of the wonderful volunteers who pull this event together. I thoroughly enjoy being a part of such a great citrus-y day and highly recommend you marking it in your calendar for next February.

Tips for award winning marmalade

With the deadline for the The World's Original Marmalade Awards right around the corner and with Seville Oranges currently in season (I just saw them being sold for $1.99/lb), I thought it would be a good time to share some of the things I have learned over the years having entered my jams, jellies and marmalades into several different competitions.

Let's start off with the judging criteria. How exactly will your marmalade be judged? Now each competition may vary slightly, but they all have similar themes.

The Royal Winter Fair - Your preserves will be judged based on the following criteria:

Visual appeal

• do you have the correct headspace
• clarity - they are looking for a clear jelly, a bright coloured jam, a solid amount of fruit
• suspension - is your peel/fruit distributed equally throughout the jar

Aroma

• can they smell the different ingredients in your product
• is it a nice clean smell
• are there any off notes

Texture

• have you achieved the desire set
• is your peel too hard or is it chewy but soft
• is it spreadable (think of Goldie Locks and the 3 bears here - they want spreadable but not too firm. Soft but not runny)

Flavour

• is the first thing they taste the fruit used to make the marmalade, jam or jelly
• is it a clean taste or has it been muddied by overcooking
• too sweet, too bitter, etc

Originality

• are you showing them a combination they haven't seen before

Each category is marked out of 10 for a total score of 50.

Now for The World's Original Marmalade Awards, the criteria is slightly different. They judge the following broken down like this;

• Appearance (2 points)
• Colour (5 points)
• Consistency, texture, quality (6 points)
• Flavour, aroma (7 points)

To get a gold you need a score of between 19.5 - 20. Silver 18-19, Bronze 16-17.5 and Merit 12-15.

So now that you know what you are going to be judged on, how do you go about creating a marmalade that stands a chance of winning? 

Marmalades can be made from a variety of citrus fruits; grapefruit, lemons, meyer lemons, blood oranges, limes, etc. But for this particular example we are going to assume that you are making a traditional marmalade made from Seville Oranges. Seville Oranges have a short season and usually arrive in Canada in January or February and can be found in stores for approximately 3-4 weeks. They make a great marmalade because of their high pectin content and their peel has a very interesting bitter flavour. 

1. Start with using organic seville oranges if possible. Because you are including the peel as well as the meat of the fruit, it does make a difference to the overall flavour when the peel has not come into contact with pesticides. Scrub each orange gently with a vegetable brush and then dry completely.
2. Prepare your oranges carefully. Marmalade is not a quick jam. So give it the time it deserves and you will be rewarded.

• Cut your oranges in half and juice. Collect all the seeds so you can put them in the cheese cloth along with the pith and membrane. You may also want to consider supreming your orange segments and cutting it into small pieces.

• Using a spoon, scoop out the membrane and place in a bowl with the seeds. Be consistent with the amount of pith you scoop out for a nice uniform peel

• Cut your peels in half and flatten, then trim off any points or curves so you can create a nice uniform rind size.

• you can decide here if you want a chunky peel or a fine cut peel, but ensure you are consistent

3. Soak your peel in an equal amount of water for 1-2 minutes. This removes some of the bitterness from the peel. Drain the water and do not keep it.

4. Cook your peel with a little bit of baking soda. This will help keep your peel nice and bright once it is cooked. Remember to simmer gently. Peels that are cooked on a high boil tend to get tough.

5. Warm your sugar in the oven before adding it to your fruit. This reduces the chance of crystallization of the sugar in your marmalade. It helps it to dissolve quickly. If you can't warm it in an oven, be sure to allow the sugar to completely dissolve before bringing to a boil

6. Consider making your marmalade in a copper pot (keeping in mind not to soften the peel in the copper pot on it's own. Copper pots require sugar to always be present). Copper is an amazing conductor of heat and allow you to cook your jam down to the desired consistency quicker and without cooking away too much of the flavour of the fruit.

7. Add a small amount of unsalted butter to your marmalade. This reduces the amount of foam as it cooks and reduces the amount of skimming your final product will require. Not properly skimming off the foam can lead to a cloudy marmalade.

8. Allow your marmalade to cool for at least 5 minutes in the pot and off the heat before ladling into previously sterilized jars. This helps to reduce the fruit floating to the top of the jars and leads to nicer suspension.

9. Accurately measure your headspace. Especially in North American competitions, this will be noted and you will lose points if you leave too much or too little headspace.

10. If a jar doesn't seal properly it doesn't matter how delicious your marmalade may be, your entry will still be disqualified.

Now if you are feeling inspired, you still have time to make some marmalade and enter it into The World's Original Marmalade Awards or if you live in Toronto, consider Mad For Marmalade, Crazy for Citrus. 

For a few other pointers you can check out my Marmalade video here. 

GOOD LUCK!

Thanks Cuisinart

I am not sure what to make first with the wonderful prize I won last weekend at Crazy for Marmalade. But I am leaning towards making my mom's famous Butterhorns. I am interested to see how this beautiful piece of machinery handles that recipe.

Thanks again Cuisinart for the wonderful donation of this prize.

6th Annual Mad for Marmalade, Crazy for Citrus

I have never been a very lucky person. In fact, I think the last time I won anything (other than a Free Donut) would have been back in Grade 3 or 4. Our school participated in the MS Readathon and I won 2 tickets to see The Edmonton Oilers. To this day, I remember the thrill of winning. How my heart picked up speed and I felt my face redden as I walked to the front of the library to receive my prize.

All of this came flashing back to me when I heard the words ‘Christine Manning’ announced as the 2^nd place winner (two times) this weekend at the 6^th annual Mad for Marmalade held at Fort York. I had decided when I heard about the marmalade competition that I was going to enter. It would be the first time I entered a preserving competition and as silly as it may sound, I was rather nervous. I entered my marmalades in 2 different categories; Traditional Seville Orange Marmalade and Citrus Combo, where I decided to enter a relatively new recipe that I had adapted - lime cilantro marmalade.

Photo courtesy of: Sarah B Hood

I initially found out about Mad for Marmalade, Crazy for Citrus from Sarah B. Hood’s blog. Her preserving cookbook 'We Sure Can' has gotten a LOT of use in my house, so I was excited to see that she would be leading a workshop and sharing some of her tips for how to make Blue Ribbon Marmalades. Sign me up!

The morning was spent with Sarah in her workshop which was situated in one of the barrack’s at Fort York which was a surprisingly cozy and comfortable space. She shared some tips that I frantically wrote down for future reference and we all shared a jar of her fabulous Orange Marmalade and her Grapefruit Marmalade. It was an informative and enjoyable session and I was happy to have been a part of it.

Then we returned for a great demo by Chef Emily Richards. She created a couple of dishes for us using Citrus juices that filled the hall up with amazing scents and got everyone’s stomach grumbling. After a delicious lunch, it was time for the competition announcements. They started with the 3^rd place winners in each category and when I didn’t hear my name mentioned there I almost stopped paying attention. Thankfully, I didn’t because both of my entries received a 2^nd place prize and I took home two fabulous Emile Henry Salt Pigs.

Photo courtesy of: Sarah B Hood

I learned something about myself on this day. I may have aged a lot since grade 4, but one thing has not changed – I still felt my heart pick up speed and I am certain I felt my face turn red as I walked up to get my awards.

Then, when I thought the day couldn’t possibly get any better, I ended up winning the door prize which was a fabulous, sexy Cuisinart. It was definitely my day ;).