Make high quality marmalade

High quality marmalade means a marmalade with a great taste and 100 percent natural ingredients, without any kind of artificial colors and other chemical ingredients. On this page you see the steps to make your own high quality marmalade and the tools you need for that.
In this example you see how to make red currant marmalade, but you might also use this guide for any kind of fruits. Be creative and mix fruits together, e.g. currants and gooseberry or strawberry and raspberry. If you need more details, click on the pictures below to see them in full resolution.

The best basis for high quality marmalade are fresh fruits, not treated with all kind of chemical stuff that is common in industrial agriculture. The fresher the fruits are, the better are the results.
Prepare the fruits. Remove all stuff that do not belong to the fruits (stalks, stems, leafs) and also remove bad ones. Obviously this procedure depends on the kind of fruits you have and it might be a fast but also a very time consuming procedure. Especially red currant marmalade need a lot of time for this procedure.
After preparation, the fruits should look like these ones, top quality.
Wash them carefuly with cold water.
After dripping off, weight the fruits. Use exactly the amount of fruits that fits to the sugar (see description on the packet). I recommend sugar without preservatives! This is in general a kind of sugar that should be mixed in a relation of 1:1 with the fruits. This amount of sugar is enough to preserve the fruits without additional chemicals.
When you use small fruits you can leave them in pieces. You also may cut them or you use a mixer to hackle them. Fruits in pieces need longer time of cooking, depending on the size.
Add the sugar but not additional water. If you left the fruits in pieces press them a little bit with the spoon to enunciate the juice out of a few of them.
After mixing, heat the mixture. Fill the pot only three fourth, the amount will increase during cooking. Do not forget to stir up frequently. Do not use full power for heating, you have to prepare the glassware, so you need a little bit of time for preparations.
During heating of the fruits, prepare the glassware. Used glasses from pizza sauce or marmalade can be reused without problems. First, give them a wash and swill them well. Do not forget to clean the caps. Thereafter fill them half with boiling water, be careful some may break (not often, but it may happen if the classes already had a crack), close them and turn them around. This will ensure clean glasses.
Back to the fruits. Be sure that they are cooking well. Allow 2-3 minutes of cooking when you hackled the fruits and at least 5 minutes when they are in pieces (depends on the size). You might add a small amount of alcohol like gin, whisky, rum, red wine or other spirits you like just before filling. This is for the taste only.
Open one glass at a time, pour out the water but do not wipe them inside. Be careful they are hot. Use a dishtowel to handle them. Fill the hot glasses with the boiling marmalade, close them tight.
Turn the filled glass on the top side immediately after filling. This ensures an air tight glass.
After you filled the complete amount of marmalade you cooked in the pot, wash the outside of the filled glasses in hot water. Do not use cold water, this may break the glass and you will loose your marmalade.
Place the glasses on a table, bottom down and let them cool down. This may take 1-2 hours, thereafter label them, do not forget to add the year of making and store them in a cold dark place. We still have marmalade that is 3 years old and still in best condition.

If you follow this procedure and use high quality ingredients, I promise, you will get high quality marmalade and you will taste it throughout the whole year! If you have any kind of suggestions, do not hesitate to write me, using the contact form.