Whisky Marmalade

At the start of the year OH bought 2 bags of oranges only to discover when he got them home they were Seville oranges.  He figured I'd be able to use them so they got popped into my freezer and stayed there until my clear out last week.  So, today I made marmalade using a combination of recipes.

 

Whisky marmalade

 

1kg of Seville oranges

1.6kg of preserving sugar

juice of 1 lemon

2 litres of water

3 tablespoons whisky

 

 

I used the recipe on the bag of preserving sugar as my starting point.  It said to boil, cover and simmer the oranges whole for 2 hours.  To save energy I put them in my slow cooker with the lemon juice and water for 5 hours on high then left them overnight to cool.

This morning I scooped out the flesh, pith and pips and put it all in my jam pot with the cooking liquid.  I boiled it for 6 minutes then passed it all through a sieve back into the pan.

 

I added the finely shredded peel to the pan with the sugar and stirred it on a low heat until the sugar dissolved.

It was then boiled for 20 minutes until it reached setting point. I left it to cool for 20 minutes before adding some Glenfiddich whisky.  Then I potted it into sterilised jars.

It made a lovely dark caramel tasting marmalade and only cost me 12p for the lemon (note the bottle of Pear liqueur!)

The oranges were a gift as they were a mistaken purchase by OH, the preserving sugar was included in my free food shop and the whisky came from my stash of miniatures that I collected from many black tie dinners in my old life. 

I'm going to make up some food baskets for Christmas presents.  They'll have some marmalade and Apple and plum chutney and maybe some crackers or biscuits.

I was in Lakeland today when I spotted this gluten free bread mix.  At £4.19 it makes 2 loaves which is cheaper than the other bread mix I use  and has recipes ideas for a few other items.  I bought several things including the lovely bottle which now contains the finished Pear Liqueur (which is rather delicious) and spent enough to get a £5 voucher off for January.  If the bread mix is successful I'll use it to stock up on more mixes.

First present delivery is scheduled for tomorrow so looks like I need to get wrapping!