Homemade Orange Jam 橘子酱

Since I started making orange jam using mandarin oranges about 2 weeks ago, I am beginning to find interest in creating my own orange jam. One of the great big advantages of preparing my own jam is I have total control of the ingredients that go into my small cup of jam.  Freshness is another unbeatable advantage - as I only prepare in small quantity, I can consume this fresh jam within a short span of time. 

Using the sweet navel oranges to make jam, the steps are not as complicated as mandarin orange jam. The latter has a relatively more bitter skin, pith and seeds which tend to produce a more bitter pectin extract that affect the overall taste of the jam 😣




Produced 270g of jam

Ingredients

3 naval oranges, about 258g each
30ml lemon juice
80g raw sugar
10g rock sugar
200ml water

Directions

1. Rinse the oranges with Veggie & Fruit wash, and clean the  thoroughly.

2. Take one of the oranges and peel off a thin layer of the skin using a peeler. You can increase the peel quantity according to your preference.

Cut the orange peel into julienned strips. Set aside.

3. Slice off the white pith and cut out the orange segments. Keep these trimmed-away parts and seeds in a separate bowl for extracting pectin later.

You can skip this step if do not mind a more cloudy jam.

4. Cut the orange segments into smaller cubes. Keep in a separate bowl and set aside.

I collected about 300g of orange segments from the 3 oranges.

For the remaining 2 oranges, I just cut off the skin with the pith. And cut the orange segments into smaller pieces as the first orange.

These were the different orange parts collected from the three oranges.

5. Put the trimmed-away orange skin, membranes and seeds (too bad the oranges I used were seedless 😬) into a pot. Add 200ml of water to it and bring to a light boil for about 5 minutes to release the pectin from the fruits.

End of cooking.

Filter out the mixture to collect the pectin liquid.

6. Extract 30ml of lemon juice and keep the lemon skin and pulp for later use. As the lemon I used did not have a bitter taste in the rind, so I could cook it with the orange.

7. Measure sugar and rock sugar which is about 30% of the weight of the orange segments. I've collected about 300g of orange segments, so I would be using 80g of raw sugar and 10g of rock sugar. The rock sugar can be replaced by raw sugar.

8. Pour in the pectin liquid,

Diced orange segment,

orange rind

lemon juice and lemon pulp, into a deep pot to cook at medium heat till boiling. Let the mixture boils for about 10 minutes.

9. After about 10 minutes of boiling, add in the raw sugar and rok sugar. Continue to heat at medium low temperature till the sugar dissolves. Stirring occasionally.

10. After the sugar has dissolved, bring the mixture to a more vigorous boil to evaporate most of the water.

When the mixture starting to become darker and thicker, reduce the temperature and stir every 5 minutes.

Remove the lemon after the mixture has thicken considerably.

The jam is ready when the spatula can draw a trail after it. 

11. Transfer the jam to a sterilized glass container.