Morning Whiskey Marmalade

This is Whiskey-fied and it was the only recipe I ran across that suggested an alcohol I had in my bar. I didn’t like the name from the recipe book (sometimes it feels like they ran out of idea and were stretching a bit at the end), I thought putting carrots in marmalade was strange, and really whiskey didn’t seem to fit with the ingredients at all. But it called for Whiskey and I owned Whiskey and I needed to booze up a marmalade.

1. Booze

I liked using navel oranges for this because the pith tends to stay with the fruit not the peel and I didn’t have to worry about seeds. I roughly peeled the oranges and did the peels up in the food processor because I was still in high lazy, max cheater mode. I found that the easiest way to get the orange pulp out from the membranes was to cut the pith from the outside with a sharp knife then use my thumbs to get the pulp out from between the segments. This didn’t work so well for the extra navely pieces at the bottom of the orange but it got me most of the way there with very little effort or waste. I squeezed the pith when I was done to get as much juice back as possible.

2. Segmenting my oranges

The recipe called for whole allspice and cinnamon in a spice bag but I apparently don’t own whole allspice. So I generously decided that the marmalade could keep the allspice forever and I stuck the cinnamon in without wrapping it up. I also added some store bought OJ because I didn’t think I had enough juice when I started cooking. Oh and I cut out some sugar because I always get freaked out when I see all the sugar I am putting into a fruit spread.

3. Trying to follow the directions

Other than that I stayed pretty true to the directions for once. Keep in mind that I was fresh from a failure to gel on blood orange marmalade so I was trying to be on better behavior. I was also regularly getting updates on the birth of a new family member as I stirred and prayed for the gel stage to hurry up which made this more interesting. I toasted the baby with a shot of whiskey when I added the sauce to the marmalade because it felt like the right thing to do (even though I think whiskey is awful stuff) so I guess this is her marmalade? Even though she can’t eat it…hmmm…Child I will have to make you more.

4. My yield 7 half pints. Ignore the jars in the background and the extra stumpy jar. They were from the doomed blood orange marmalade.

Special Equipment: Water bath canner, Jars, bands, and lids, canning funnel, bubble remover

Morning Whiskey Marmalade
(Adapted Morning Cheer Marmalade from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving)
1/8 t Ground allspice
1 Cinnamon stick
5 Navel Oranges
1 Granny Smith apple peeled cored and grated
4 c grated carrots (I did not peel, ~6 largish carrots)
1 ½ C Water
1 C Orange Juice
3 C Sugar
1/3 C Lemon juice
¼ C Whiskey (1 very full shot glass)

1. Peel oranges. Chop peels into small pieces using a food processor. (Or score orange rinds into quarters and peel then cut peel into very thin strips.) Add to large sauce pan
2. While working over a bowl to catch the juice, cut pith and outer membrane from each orange. Remove orange segment from between interior membranes.
3. Add spices, orange segments and juice, apple, carrots, water and orange juice to saucepan with peel pieces and bring to a boil
4. Boil gently for 15 minutes then stir in lemon juice and sugar while maintaining boil
5. Boil hard until mixture reaches gel stage ~30 minutes (I forgot to time)
6. Stir in whiskey, and discard cinnamon stick
7. Ladle into jars leaving ¼ inch headspace
8. Remove bubbles and adjust headspace if required
9. Wipe rim, center lid, and screw band to fingertip tight
10. Place jars in water bath canner and adjust water level to cover the jars if necessary
11. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes
12. Turn off heat, remove canner lid, wait 5 minutes and remove jars
13. Check seal in 24 hours. Reprocess or label and store

My Yield: 3.5 pints or 7 8-oz jars