IMBB 14: Orange you hungry?

The team at Foodgoat is kindly hosting this month’s edition of Is My Blog Burning and they have selected foods with the color orange as the theme. I love how open-ended this theme is and I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else dreams up.

Peach Marmalade is my contribution to this event. I was looking through cookbooks for recipe ideas when this one from Amanda Hesser’s The Cook and The Gardener hit me. Hesser proclaimed the marmalade to be “tangy but sweet” and to have “the velvety feel of a puree.” Sounded compelling, so despite the difficulty in finding fresh peaches in Chicago at this time of year, I knew I wanted to try it.

Peach Marmalade
Original recipe from Catherine Plagemann’s Fine Preserving
Recipe here adapted from Amanda Hesser’s The Cook and The Gardener

6 ripe yellow peaches, peeled and pitted
2 navel oranges, quartered (not peeled)
½ lemon, cut in half (not peeled) and seeded

1. If your peaches are not very ripe, they may not peel easily. Slice an X in the end of each peach then drop them in boiling water for a few seconds to loosen the clingy peels. Note: I looked everywhere for fresh peaches, but alas none were to be found at this time of year. Eager to try this recipe, I substituted frozen peaches and it turned out beautifully.



2. Combine the peaches and the citrus fruit in a fruit processor and pulse until the citrus is chopped into fine pieces. You may want to do this in two batches to avoid straining your food processor.



3. Measure the pulp and combine it with an equal amount of sugar in a pot twice the size. Let macerate overnight at room temperature. Here is what mine looked like in the morning:



4. The next morning, bring the mixture to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. Test for doneness by spooning a little onto a chilled plate; if it firms up when it cools, the marmalade is done. Mine took about 30 minutes to hit the done mark.

5. Pour into clean pint or half-pint jars. Process the jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. You can store the properly jarred marmalade in a cool, dark place for up to one year.



This peach marmalade is delicious and the flavor is getting better each day. At first, it was much more citrusy and the peach flavor didn’t come through as much as I would have hoped. With each day that passes though, the peach tones come out more and while the peach is certainly subtle compared to the citrus flavor, it is pleasantly there. So with any luck the jars you save in your pantry will have a really nice flavor balance when it is time to use them. The vibrant orange color and perfect marmalade texture of this sweet make it really hard to pass up when breakfast rolls around. I’ve been enjoying it on honey wheat sour bread from a local bakery.

It’s important to note that this recipe makes a ton of marmalade. See the photo at the top of this entry to understand just how much it makes. I had never made marmalade or any type of jelly before, so I didn’t really know what quantity to expect as I was preparing the ingredients. Hesser’s recipe didn’t indicate how much marmalade would be produced. This is a wonderful peach marmalade and it will be delightful to have around; just be warned that you will need several jelly jars ready to go to properly seal and store this tasty treat.

Thanks to the Foodgoat team for hosting IMBB 14 and presenting us with such a fun theme. Now I'm off to talk to the Guinness World Records people about my win for the largest jelly jar ever...

Next time At Our Table: I ordered spinach, they brought me tuna...but I love them anyway.