I like to think I'm a growing being, ever changing, developing, learning, and eager to face new challenges.
I seek new and better ways to do things. If I see a flaw in my current methods, I work to change and improve those methods. Now, I do see a flaw in how I'm allocating my time for this blog. I have been focusing too much on producing frequent posts, and shortchanging the quality of my posts.
So, for the next little while, I'll be reducing my posting schedule to 3 days per week. I am hoping this will give me the time I want, to do a job well, so that you, dear friend, can have something truly worthwhile to read when you visit.
I'll continue to stick with a schedule. You can count on a post being available Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in the early morning hours.
If for some reason, you come to creative savv and don't see a post on one of those days of the week, you can know that either I'm ill, there's been some sort of emergency in our home, or I'm having a senior moment and I thought I hit the "publish" button, but I didn't. And my deepest apologies for scenario number 3. That day will come, when senior moments occur with greater frequency. I'm just hoping I've got a long way to go until then!
But for today, here's my regular post.
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| the sloshy marmalade |
Re-cooking a runny batch of orange marmalade
I have this incredible knack for producing unset jellies, jams and now marmalades. I thought I'd conquered this with the jams and jellies. Not an unset batch this past autumn. But evidently, my marmalade is another story.
I do know why this keeps happening. I am so afraid of developing a scorched flavor in these preserves, that I tend to err on the side of undercooked.
I made my once-a-year batch of marmalade a week ago. It came out kind of syrupy, and not at all jelled. Fortunately, I've got a lot of experience in re-cooking jams and jellies. So, yesterday afternoon I set out to re-cook my marmalade. I went online to make sure I was re-cooking marmalade correctly (in case there's any difference between re-cooking jelly and re-cooking marmalade). I found these instructions from ehow.com. It's very simple, but it does take added pectin.
To "fix" a batch of thin marmalade, measure the amount to be re-cooked. For every 4 cups of marmalade, you'll need:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons lemon juice (bottled is fine)
4 teaspoons powdered pectin
I stirred the pectin and sugar together in a small bowl, to break up any lumps of pectin. Then I mixed these in with the water and lemon juice, right in my jelly pot. Next I stirred in the unset marmalade, until completely combined.
Stirring constantly, I brought this mixture to a boil. I could feel some build-up on the bottom of the pot, so continued stirring. I boiled, while stirring, for 1 full minute.
I filled my sterilized jars, added new lids, and reprocessed.
So far it looks like this worked. I had a small amount of marmalade leftover, which I put in a dish on the counter, and it is thickening up nicely.
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| the re-cooked, and thicker marmalade |
I'm hoping that your marmalade is more successful on the first run than mine. But just in case, I can (sadly) vouch that these instructions work for re-cooking a runny batch.
