Rose's Orange Fine Cut Marmalade (454g)

Product Information

The founder died on 9 May 1885 in Stoke Newington. His grandson would serve in the First World War in the Royal Engineers under Sir Gordon Guggisberg, who later became Governor of the Gold Coast (Ghana). Due to an acquaintance, limes were exported from the Gold Coast from 1924.

The colour and texture was exactly what you would expect of a high-quality marmalade. A vibrant dark-ish orange that didn’t look too artificial, strewn with thin strands of orange zest. The consistency, too, looked perfect - it was set enough to just about stay in its jar should you tip it upside down, but still gooey enough to move in a naturally wobbly way. When sniffed, it smelled citrusy, but not overwhelmingly so. Use a vegetable peeler to carefully peel the oranges into long strips, taking care not to have too much pith (white part of the rind) on the rind. This particular orange marmalade is quite sweet, primarily because it uses sweet, blonde oranges and not the bitter Seville oranges. Also, this marmalade recipe is quite persistent in trying to remove as much pith as possible, and blanching the peel beforehand helps to soften it so that you are not confronted with a chunk of bitter peel later. Ginger Marmalade Taste buds primed with Bonne Maman, it was now time to test out the other marmalades to see if any of the alternatives were any better. M&S was up first with its Shredless Orange Marmalade.

Questions & Answers

Remove segments of the oranges between the membranes. Do this over a large bowl to catch all of the juice. In consistency, it was similar to Tesco’s, too. Not quite as wet as Bonne Maman’s but definitely no jelly, either. The colour, meanwhile, was spot on for Bonne Maman’s. The marmalade itself was the exact same shade of orange, while the strands of peel looked nicely dark in comparison. If you’re worried that there is too little mixture in the pot, you might be using a pot which is too big. Although, you don’t want to use one that is too small either because the mixture needs room to bubble away viciously without burning your hands as you stir to avoid it catching at the bottom of the pan! In terms of taste, it had all of the flavours I was expecting - sweetness, zestiness, bitterness - though the latter was definitely the most powerful of the three and left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

The taste did not disappoint me. The taste was phenomenal. In fact, the taste transported me to a heavenly plane of being, as much as a bite of marmalade toast can. It was also a recipe which used the least amount of sugar; jam recipes often call for 1:1 ratio of fruit to sugar and which makes sense if you are preserving for the long haul (i.e. if you are making jam which might be eaten 2 or more years later), but which isn’t necessary if you know you will consume the jam over the coming weeks. If you are not using a sugar thermometer (or even if you are), to test if the marmalade has reached setting point, put a tablespoon of marmalade onto the chilled plate.In fact, the ingredients label looked fairly similar to the M&S marmalade - sugar, water, glucose-fructose syrup, orange purée, orange juice from concentrate, orange peel, trisodium citrate as an acidity regulator, orange oil and caramelised sugar. It had the same ratio per 100g of fruit (20g) and sugar (65g), too. The Lime Marmalade was introduced in the 1930s. Its slogan in the 1940s was The Difference is Delightful. It was marketed as a British Empire Product. During the war it was restricted under the jam ration. In July 1955 the lime juice gained a Royal Warrant of Appointment to Her Majesty. The company was the sole distributor of Dubonnet in the UK from 1938.