Seville Orange and Bergamot Marmalade

Now is the season to squeeze as many organic seville oranges in your freezer and to fill these empty jars. My bergamot and lemon marmalade last year was a real hit so I decided to combine the bergamot with Seville oranges this season. If you ever find some bergamots, then buy them. You will always find something to do with their fragrant citrusy taste. I buy mine from the amazing online food website called Natoora and they never let me down!

I decided to use 2 bergamots to infuse the oranges, but without slicing the zest and adding them to the end product as I thought it would be too much. It might sound like a waste of the bergamots not to add the fruits in the marmalade, but infusing them with the oranges is really making the most of this citrus.

Seville Orange and Bergamot Marmalade

Ingredients:

2 bergamot
1 kg of Seville Oranges
2 kg granulated sugar
juice of 2 lemons

In the evening, wash the fruits well, chop the bergamot in quarters and leave the oranges as whole. Place them in a pan and submerge them with water. Bring to the boil and then simmer for at least 1h. Leave it overnight to cool and infuse.

The next day, remove the fruits and measure the cooking water left. You need double amount of your total fruit weight, 1.4L here. If too much liquid, reduce it a bit more by bringing it to the boil once more, or simply add some more water if you don’t have enough. Chop all the fruits in half and with a spoon remove the flesh from the skin and place the flesh and pips on top of a sieve. Use a spatula to squeeze the pulp through the sieve and extract as much pectin as possible and add it to the pan of water. Chop the oranges in fine strips and add to the pan along with the lemon juice and the sugar. Turn the heat on to maximum and mix well to dissolve the sugar properly, then let it boil until it reaches 105C. From that point, keep in boiling for about 25 minutes. Have a wooden spoon ready in the freezer and spoon a little of the liquid on it to test the setting point. When the top of the marmalade forms a skin and rinkles when pushed with the finger, the marmalade is set. Fill clean jars up to the top, add the lid on tightly and invert on a heatproof surface.