Satsuma Orange Marmalade Recipe | Modern Sewciety (2024)

Dec 7, 2013 | blog | 2 comments

Have you ever had a satsuma orange? Well if not you need to find some next fall or maybe you can still find them now. My parents have a tree which is fairly young but producing fruits and their neighbor has an older tree that produces like crazy. Every year we go to the neighbor’s house and pick buckets of satsumas with the girls. I love that my dad goes with us because it will be a memory the girls will always have with him. We usually go around Thanksgiving when they are really ready for the picking.

I love orange marmalade. I love the sweet and the bitter. I love the color. I love that it takes me back to such a great memory of picking those oranges with the girls and my dad. I love that it is a memory of fall for me. I just love it. I have made marmalade two other times when we picked. The first time it was yummy but super jelled but yummy. We ate all of it. Last year it was so runny and didn’t jell at all. I actually ended up throwing it out. This year I was on a mission to try to find a recipe that worked well for me. I wanted it to be jelled but not super jelled like the first year and not too runny like last year. There aren’t a lot of recipes out there for orange marmalade that use satsumas. I thought I would give you the resources I used so if you wanted to make your own marmalade you can.

Grit Magazine Satsuma Orange and Bourbon Marmalade– I did use parts of this recipe. I put half of my oranges with peel in the food processor which I think worked great. AND I forgot to add the bourbon which totally bummed me out. NEXT TIME for sure.

The Evil Made Scientist Easy Orange Marmalade – okay I think this is a great resource because he says to measure out your water enough to cover your oranges and then put that much sugar in. Well I have 8 cups or water and ended up putting in 5 cups (maybe a smog more than 5) and it was great. It wasn’t too sweet and you could still taste the bitter. I loved it. I did put some pretty big chunks of peel in as well. I didn’t worry about taking anything out of the oranges before cooking like the seeds or the pith. I scoop the few seeds I saw when I stirred out and there isn’t much pith in a satsuma to worry about.

Anna’s Marmalade from Ina Garten – a good resource I didn’t really use this recipe but it did give me some information

One thing I did want to try was to give it a little heat with a jalapeño pepper. My mom grows them so I got a handful and started adding them little by little. Well this batch of peppers wasn’t very hot so I put three peppers in the batch and it didn’t add any heat. Oh well maybe next time.

My uncle did say it was the best marmalade he had ever had. There ya go.

edited to add: I took about 20 satsumas. peeled half of them and cut peel into strips and strips and orange segments into pot. put the other half into food processor and pulsed until chopped and added to the pot. I measured the water until I filled I covered the oranges (it was 8 cups). I boiled that down until the peel got soft which was about 45 minutes. Then I added about 5ish cups of sugar and let the boil until it reached around 120 on the candy thermometer. I added a pack of sure jell at a rolling boil for 1 minute. I then put it in clean jars with lids and rings that I had boiled. I wiped the jars then put the lids on tight. Turned the jars upside side for several hours then back right side up for the night. They all sealed perfect.If you have any questions just email me.

And while speaking of citrus… my dad brought me branches from another friend’s Kumquat tree.

The tree was so loaded with fruit it was breaking the branches on the tree. Dad cut the branches and brought them to the house. I shared some with my of so crafty neighbor that made a beautiful arrangement for her Thanksgiving table and kept the rest not knowing what I was going to do. The girls decided to try them. They peel them and eat the inside by the handfuls. D likes the green ones (I know weird right!) and A likes the orange ones. I love how different those two girls are but so much a like at the same time. Every day after school they want to come home and sit outside to eat kumquats. I love it. Another memory they have from my dad.

I think I am going to try to make some kumquat marmalade. Whatcha think?