Peach-Orange Marmalade

This past weekend, I joined a friend of mine in traveling back to her hometown for a grand endeavor: to make delicious jam! 

She decided to make blueberry jam from frozen blueberries, which means we can recreate her masterpiece any time of the year. I had my heart set on marmalade, but since citrus is out of season and not found frozen in large chunks, I decided to make them a supporting role and to instead find a seasonal fruit to be the star so we can remember the summer as it begins to slip away.

I settled on Peach-Orange Marmalade. We went to a local orchard to pick up 5 pounds of peaches from the end of the season bounty. Before leaving Pittsburgh, I picked up a few organic citrus from Whole Foods for the recipe. Armed with fresh produce, we embarked on a marathon jam-making session on Saturday.

To say the results of both jams were delicious would be a gross understatement. 

Her blueberry jam was "the best berry jam" we've ever had. It is chock-full of berries and bursting with fresh blueberry flavor, and she picked a low-sugar version, so it doesn't even seem like there was added sugar. It just tastes like you stewed blueberries in their own juices and concentrated the flavors. When I came home with a couple jars of the blueberry jam (traded for two jars of my marmalade), we used half a jar to layer with some homemade frozen yogurt. YUM.

And my peach-orange marmalade? The peaches are cooked down but still have texture, and when you bite down on a chunk of peach, it is a burst of summery goodness. And flowing over it all are overtones of intense orange flavor. Occasionally you chomp down on a chunk of peel or candied bit of orange wedge. I grated the peel so the pieces are fairly tiny, but you can definitely tell they are there. It is tart and not too sweet and pretty much perfect. I am already looking forward to making this recipe again!

Note: None of the recipes cited have pectin, and I originally intended not to use it either, but after I couldn't get my marmalade up to temperature and it failing a cold spoon test (maybe I didn't add enough sugar to get it up that high), I decided not to risk ending up with liquidy "fruit sauce" and added in a box of pectin at the end. It set wonderfully right away and I think it's the safe and easy way to go, so I added it to the recipe below as an option.

Peach-Orange Marmalade (adapted loosely and mashed together from these three sources)

Ingredients:

5 pounds fresh peaches (frozen slices may work just fine for this too)

2 organic oranges (I used Valencia, but any medium sized orange will do)

1 organic lemon

5 cups sugar (or up to 6 cups, if not using pectin)

1 package powdered sugar-free Sure-Jell (optional but highly recommended)

Instructions:

To prepare peaches: Bring a large pot of water up to a boil. Drop in your peaches and boil for a minute or two. Scoop and transfer peaches into some ice water. The skin should come off fairly easily now with a paring knife. Skin all peaches, pit, and dice into whatever size chunks you want in your marmalade. Put peach chunks into large non-reactive bowl.

To prepare citrus: Wash citrus well, cut off any areas of peel that look blemished. Using a medium/large hole grater, grate the oranges and lemon. Add grated peels to bowl with peaches. Using a paring knife, halve and then cut off all the rest of the peel for both oranges. De-seed and then cut the orange flesh into little bitty pieces. Add all the flesh and any dribbly juice that escapes into the bowl with peaches and peel. For the lemon, juice it and add the juice and any fleshy pulp that accumulates on the juicing apparatus you use. Add to the mixture. (Optional: take the orange and lemon seeds and put them in a little tea sachet or bit of cheesecloth and secure it so they don't fall out. Especially if you want to try to do this recipe pectin-free, boiling the seeds with the fruit will give you extra natural pectin to help it set up.)

To make the marmalade: Pour all the fruit and grated peel and juice into a large non-reactive pot. Add the 5 (or more if desired) cups of sugar and bring up to a boil. Simmer uncovered for 40-45 minutes, stirring occasionally. The peaches should turn translucent and the overall volume should reduce down. If you can get your mixture to reach a temperature of 220 degrees on a candy thermometer when brought up to a hard boil, you might have a shot at having it set without pectin. It will end up being soft set like preserves, not jelled up like when you add external pectin. Use a chilled plate/spoon to test: spoon a small dallop onto a cold spoon or plate that had been put in the freezer for a little while; if after a minute of cooling down on the plate/spoon, you can push your finger through the marmalade and see it wrinkle/clump up a bit and not run down around your finger, it will set fine and you can forgo the pectin. Take marmalade off heat immediately. IF NOT, then add a small box of powdered no-calorie pectin and stir to combine and bring back up to a boil. You will see it thicken up almost instantly. Let cook for a minute or two at boiling, and then the marmalade is ready and you can take the pot off the heat.

To prepare the jars/lids: Sterilize 7-8 clean half-pint glass canning jars by either running through sterilization cycle in dishwasher, or dipping into a vat of boiling water (which can be used later to process the filled jars) for a few minutes. For seals and rings, also sterilize by boiling in a pot for at least 5-10 minutes (you can consult your canning set kit instructions for further information).

To fill and process jars: Once the marmalade is removed from heat, remove the bag of seeds, and using a wide-mouthed funnel, ladle the mixture into your clean jars. Leave 1/4 inch of headspace at the top of the jar. Make sure the rims of the jars are clean; wipe off any trace of marmalade from the rim or else the seal will not be tight. Apply sterilized seals and rings to the jars, and process the filled jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Do not process partially-filled jars. (If you don't have a canning pot that came with a kit, you can just use a tall stock pot and a round wire rack that fits at the bottom of the pot. You just need the water line to be 2 inches above the tops of the jars.) After 15 minutes, remove jars from boiling water with tongs and place onto towels/potholders on the countertop to cool. Over the course of the next hour or so, you should see/hear the seals being set by a "pop" sound and the lid indent being sucked down with negative pressure. If any of the lid tops remain floppy, you can reprocess again to try to get it to work, or just throw the jar in the fridge for immediate eating. You can also freeze these in jars with normal lids if you don't want to use boiling water processing. 

If you did NOT use pectin but the marmalade passed the spoon test, turn the jars over 3-4 times in the first 24 hours as it cools and sets. That way the fruit has a better chance of staying evenly distributed through the jar.

For more detailed information on boiling water processing, go here.

Storage: If you used boiling processing and the seal was successfully made, you can ideally store in a cool, dark place for up to a year or two. If the seal is lost or things are growing in it, definitely it has gone bad and please throw it out. If you don't want to process the jars, you can store in the freezer for several months. If in the fridge, you probably want to eat it up within several weeks.