Vanilla Bean Blood Orange Marmalade

First off I need to say Thank you to Cindy at:  Canning Year Two!:    http://sbcanning.blogspot.com/

I reached out for recipe ideas for making Blood Orange Marmalade, and she was more than helpful she provided a recipe, and than when I had questions, even provided photos explaining the process.

Cindy is a member of the SB Canning Group, and blogs about here canning adventures to meet her ultimate goal to become a more sustainable household!

THANK YOU Cindy for your wealth of canning knowledge, your informative blog, and for your help!

I have been learning about blood oranges for a while now, I believe the first time was Oprah's favorite things involving a blood orange sorbet!!  After last night, now I know why. 

This marmalade is amazing, I even forced Mr. P to try it, and he was surprised how good it was!

Now this is not a cheap recipe to make, after three stores..I found blood oranges that were marmalade worthy.  However when I started to make the recipe, the smaller, cheaper oranges were more red! 

Ingredients:
2 medium juice oranges (I used Florida navels)
2 large blood oranges (I used 1 1/2 large and 1 small)
2 lemons
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 vanilla bean
One 1.75-ounce package powdered pectin
6 1/2 cups granulated sugar (I used 6 cups)

1.  Place your jars in the dishwasher to sterilize.  I would plan for 75 oz, it is better to have extra hot jars than not enough.  You want them to be hot, so do a hot wash, or at a minimum to a heated dry.  If you do not have a dishwasher, there are a lot of steps on line how to sterilize your jars.

1. Remove any stickers from the fruit, wash the oranges and lemons.  Remove the rinds in quarters and thinly slice them lengthwise.  When all the rinds are sliced, roughly chop them crosswise into slightly smaller pieces.  Put the rinds in a large pot and add 2 1/2 cups of water and then the baking soda.

For some reason, I could not understand this.  And I still had some trouble figuring out how to get the citrus off the peel, I first tried using a knife and cutting it off, but I could from Cindy's photos that is not what she did.  Mr P. was taking photos for me, and advised you just peel it off.  I am a novice cooking with citrus!!

2.  With a sharp knife, split the vanilla bean open lengthwise and scrape the seeds into the pot.  Add the vanilla bean to the pot and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.

3.  Meanwhile, roughly chop the oranges and lemons removing the seeds as you go.  Transfer the fruit to a food process and pulse until it is evenly chopped but still a bit coarse.  (I used a blender with the chop function as my food processor does not handle liquids so good)  Add the fruit to the pot with the rinds and return to a boil.  Cover and boil for 15 minutes.

Dicing before they are placed in the mixer

Chopping the fruit

4.  Measure out 4/12 cups of the fruit mixture.  Make sure to get a good mixture of rind, fruit and juice.  Discard remaining fruit mixture and vanilla bean (I only got 4 cups of fruit mixture so I lowered my sugar a bit, and used the same amount of pectin, I just figured it will be a harder set)

 

5.  Return the 4/12 cups of the fruit mixture to the pot.  Stir in the pectin and return to a boil.  Boil vigorously for one minute

With the pectin

6.  Add the sugar all at once and stir until combined.  Return to a rapid boil, stirring frequently, and boil hard for one minute.

It turns this brillant red color after adding the sugar!



Waiting to be wiped up and processed



7.  Ladle hot marmalade into hot sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace.  Wipe rims of jars, cover with lids, and screw bands on until just barely tight.  Place jars on rack in pot and cover completely with water.  Cover pot and bring to a boil over high heat.  Boil for 10 minutes.  Turn off heat, uncover pot, and allow jars to rest in water for five minutes.  Remove jars from pot and allow to rest undisturbed on counter top for six hours or overnight.  (Now I did not cover my pot, as it was to noisy.  I did place in already boiling water)

From this I have a couple of questions I need to figure out:

1.  The difference between liquid pectin and powdered pectin

I did learn that the baking soda is what neutralized the bitter taste from the pith!  Thank you Again Cindy!!

boiling with the Vanilla bean!





What not to do, peel and don't slice the fruit off!




The peels chopped