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Seville Orange marmalade and liqueur recipes

 

Organic Seville Oranges

Organic Seville Oranges

I picked up The Contessa from the vet’s this morning. She’d been staying with them for a day and a night as they carried out a blood sugar curve test. She was diagnosed with diabetes last year and is doing pretty well but recently she has lost a lot of weight and her diabetes needs to be stabilised. The daily injections are not the gruelling trial that I thought they would be. In fact, a kind reader suggested that we give her a tiny treat after the injection and that has worked well. Immediately she spots the syringe she starts to dance with joy and is happy to sit on my chair whilst I do the Doctor Kildaire thing.

The Contessa was alternatively shrieking about her adventures and gazing out of the window of The Duchess as we glided along. Then I remembered that it is The Marmalade month so we swooped into Waitrose to pick up some organic Seville oranges. Wondering whether The Contessa would set off The Duchess’s alarm I whizzed into Waitrose and bumped into Gilbert in the citrus fruit section. He usually makes an annual trip to Seville to stay with his friend Juan and handpick his own oranges from Juan’s grove. Something must have gone wrong.

“Hello Gilbert! It’s ages since we’ve seen you.”
He turned and gave me a bear hug. The thin bags of oranges bumping against my back.
“Despite the Euro and the exchange rate we’ve been holed up in France for months. But Marjorie had a yen for her Aga. Need I say more?”
“Is everything O.K.?”
“Ahh you’re wondering why I’m plucking Seville oranges from Waitrose? Well sadly Juan died. It was very sudden. Happened last July.”
He turned away quickly and started to examine the Seville oranges very closely.

Within seconds he’d pointed out that the unpackaged organic oranges were cheaper than the ordinary ones in handy nets.
“Crazy. Organic make marmalade that reverberates. The others are alright but loads of people must assume that they are cheaper and don’t even bother to check the price of the organic ones.”

We loaded up our baskets with organic oranges and lemons.
“This year I’m going to try making some marmalade myself.” Gilbert confided. “Bella, Juan’s daughter, asked me to stay and pick oranges. I just couldn’t face it but maybe next year. I reckon that if I do go, I’ll fill the boot with orange bounty. The entire lot will be transformed into Seville orange liqueur. Juan loved it.”

You can find Gilbert’s Seville orange liqueur recipe here.

We have several good marmalade recipes that we have developed over the years:
A super three fruit marmalade. A best seller on our gateside stand.
Easy Seville orange marmalade. This fine shredded marmalade is a classic and gets the thumbs up from my mum.
Seville orange and quince marmalade. Lots of deep flavours in this orange and quince mix.
Sultry thick cut maramalde. Only for dark marmalade lovers.


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20 Comments

  1. Linda Lawrence

    I just thought I would look for some liqueur recipes i could make and your website came up, wow what lovely recipes, also your jam and marmalades, I can’t wait to get to Tescos or indeed Waitrose tomorrow and getting some ingredients to start, thank you so much.

  2. Hi and thanks for the great site! I have just finished this year’s batch of Seville Marmalade and wanted to share some of my variations. I make plain and simple (of course!), but this site has inspired me to try adding various liqueurs along the way and here are my ones for this year…

    Seville Orange and Sloe Whisky, has a great dark orange red colour and kind of a smokey taste, I used 200ml sloe whisky.

    Seville Orange and Sloe Gin, very red in colour and good citrus-y taste, used 250ml sloe gin.

    Chocolate Orange Marmalade – brown colour so you can see that it’s chocolate, used 300-350ml Creme de Cacao and I have to say this is my favourite this year!

    P.S. All the amounts shown relate to a 1kg batch of oranges in the normal recipe, I add the booze after boiling the set, tilt your head back unless you want a lung full of vapour 🙂

  3. Hello and thanks for the lovely post! I adore marmalade especially ginger marmalade and 3 fruit.

    I went back at looked at Gilbert’s Seville Orange Gin recipe and since sevilles are really hard to find here in Alberta, Canada I was wondering if tangerines or grapefruit could be substituted successfully.

    If you happen to have a tried and true ginger marmalade recipe I would be very grateful.

    My condolences to Gilbert on the loss of his friend.

    Janet

  4. I also popped into Waitrose today completely having forgotten your article and sure enough cheaper to by loose than in a bag. So today i used your quince and Seville orange marmalade recipe and it came out beautifully. Also experimented by the addition of a sprig of rosemary in 4 jars and a bay leaf in two others. It could be disastrous but i have a feeling it will be fabulous – I’ll let you know in a couple of months when theyve had chance to soak in the flavour

  5. Geraldine

    On the subject of fruit spirits, I make vodkas every year for Christmas; lemon(twist of peel and a couple of black peppers), vanilla (a pod), pepper (small red chilli), krupnik (with honey) and damson (added some sugar along with the fruit). Have made sloe vodka and gin, but sadly my source of sloes is no longer with us. Will certainly try the Seville gin this week, but will seriously have to hide it away and forget about it for 3 years if that™s the maturing time! Thanks for the recipe “ will have a go during my annual marmalade making next weekend!

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