The existence of marmalade in Europe became known in the 14th century.
Moreover, in Portugal quince jam was considered marmalade, and in France and England thick, jelly jam was prepared from citrus fruits.
Later, marmalade began to be prepared from other fruits containing a large amount of pectin - a natural gelling substance.
As a substance, pectin was discovered a little over two hundred years ago.
The word "pectin" itself has Greek roots, which means that the ancient Greeks could well come up with marmalade, given that Greece is a Mediterranean country with a mild and warm climate, an abundance of citrus fruits, and such it was even thousands of years ago.
But the astringent properties of quince, palpable even at first glance, or rather taste, also indicate the veracity of the Portuguese version of the origin of marmalade. Although quince is a representative of the Middle East flora, as its name and even astringent taste indicate. But what does Portugal have to do with it? Despite the fact that this country in the middle of the last millennium, having an excellent fleet, was the main pioneer of new lands, countries and the most ancient civilizations of the planet. One way or another, medieval Portugal was involved in the discovery of marmalade, although it is clear that it could not do without oriental subtleties.
Marmalade at home - basic technological principles
In fact, how else could people at the dawn of civilization, without refrigerators and freezers, not knowing the technology of sugar production and canning, preserve a generous harvest of fruits under the rays of the tropical or even sultry sun? There were only two options: drying and boiling the fruit.
At a time when sugar was still very far away and a little later, when it appeared, but was a great luxury even for the most notable nobles, both in Europe and in Asian countries, people learned to use the gifts of nature to preserve the harvest and make stocks.
Everywhere, honey, fruit juices, which were boiled until thickened, served as preservatives.
Natural components of natural origin in ancient times and now are most valuable in the manufacture of marmalade. Therefore, marmalade made from sugar is a tasty but not healthy product.
Nowadays, sugar is cheaper than honey, and health is still of the highest value to humans. Therefore, in order not to refuse marmalade, which is often made by manufacturers from cheaper raw materials, using sugar, artificial colors and flavors, lovers of healthy sweets should better make marmalade at home.
But for this you need to learn some of the subtleties of making homemade marmalade.
The greatest amount of pectin necessary for the preparation of natural marmalade is found in apples, quinces, pears, melons, peaches, apricots and plums, cherries and cherries, currants.
To prepare high-quality marmalade at home, with sufficient gelling properties and a viscous, dense structure, you can use any other fruit juices, but with the addition of pectin powder produced by the industry: it is produced from apple cake, peel of citrus and some other natural materials.
The main properties of pectin: the powder is slightly soluble in cold water. Its astringent properties are manifested when heated.
The next natural thickener is agar-agar, obtained by extracting special algae. The properties of this thickener are similar to pectin.
In addition to pectin and agar, gelatin obtained from raw materials of animal origin is used for the production of marmalade by the confectionery industry. Gelatin dissolves at lower temperatures, at 40ºϹ and higher it loses its astringent properties. Low temperatures (from 0ºϹ) also destroy the collagen contained in gelatin.
These properties of thickeners must be taken into account when making marmalade at home, as well as other confectionery products.
If you are interested in marmalade with extremely useful properties, it is advisable to replace sugar with honey, stevia, fructose, or thicken fruit juices without using sugar.
To make marmalade at home looked more appetizing and could decorate a dessert table, there are many different tricks of its design, but read about it in more detail in the recipes below.
Recipe 1. Marmalade at home from raspberries with pectin
Ingredients:
Raspberries (fresh or frozen) 0.5 kg
Pectin 50 g
Honey (not sugared) 90 g
Cooking:
Wipe the berries through a sieve: you should get 300 ml of juice. It is important to achieve its transparency, so it is advisable to pass the juice through a filter made of several layers of gauze and a cotton layer. Heat the juice to 50-60ºϹ, add pectin to it and bring it to a boil in half an hour. Cook for five minutes. Cool to 30-35ºϹ and, adding honey, mix so that the honey is completely dissolved. At temperatures above 40ºϹ, the beneficial properties of honey are significantly reduced, therefore it is important to add this product to warm juice.
Pour unhardened juice into molds and put in the cold to solidify.
Raspberry marmalade with honey, without the use of sugar, can be used as a cold remedy even for those who are contraindicated in the use of sugar.
Recipe 2. Marmalade at home from plum
Cooking:
Plums 1.0 kg
Water 300 ml
Sugar 350 g
Pectin (powder) 50 g
Cooking:
Natural clarified juice from plums, without adding water is extremely difficult to obtain. The best plum variety for juice is Hungarian. Sort the ripe berries, remove the seeds. Plums should be steamed. Grind the cooked pulp until mashed, and hang in gauze over a container into which juice will drain. Puree the mashed potatoes in a saucepan, fill with water and boil a second time. Combine both sides of the resulting juice, add sugar combined with pectin. When the juice boils, let it simmer for about 10 minutes and pour it into the molds with warm water.
You can use forms for candy, cookies. To make marmalade very beautiful and bright, take, in addition to Hungarian, yellow plums and make a two-layer dessert. For this form, first half fill with red plum marmalade, and when it hardens, add yellow marmalade. In this case, start to cook marmalade from yellow plums 3-4 hours later, so that the first layer has time to freeze in the refrigerator.
Recipe 3. Marmalade at home from quince
Ingredients:
Quince 1.5 kg
Molasses 300 g
Coconut flakes 100 g
Cooking:
The fruits must be washed and baked in the oven until soft. When cooled to such a temperature that it is convenient to work with them further, wipe through a sieve to get mashed pits and peels. In the resulting puree, add molasses or sugar syrup, or honey, thoroughly mixing the mass, put to cook until thickened. During the cooking process, stir constantly and do not forget that for the preparation of marmalade it is better to use the same dishes that are usually used for cooking jam or jam.
Put the cooled mass into molds and sprinkle with coconut flakes, which will not only decorate homemade marmalade, but also give an interesting taste. If you don’t like the taste of coconuts, use sugar.
Recipe 4. Marmalade at home unsweetened, for snack dishes
Sometimes marmalade is unsweetened and can be served with different dishes, and not just as a dessert. If you need to arrange a festive snack, jelly or aspic, prepare marmalade from vegetables.
Ingredients:
Beets 0.300 g
Carrot 250 g
Spinach 0.5 kg
Agar 30 g
Salt, pepper, sugar
Cooking:
Blanch the spinach and beat it with a blender. Add spices if necessary. Wash the root crops in foil and bake in the oven until cooked. Make mashed potatoes of them when cooled, and season with spices if necessary. Add 10 g of agar to each puree; if necessary, add a little water (for very thick purees) and let each mass boil. Cooking is necessary only until the agar dissolves.
Prepare the dishes to lay the mashed potatoes in a thin layer. You can lay out each type of mashed potatoes individually, or make a three-layer mass. When unsweetened marmalade hardens, cut out the figures of the desired shape to decorate the dishes.
The use of agar is remarkable in that after cutting the figures, the remaining pieces of marmalade can be collected and reheated again, until a liquid mass is obtained, and then give it the desired shape.
Recipe 5. Fruit marmalade at home from gooseberries and currants
Ingredients:
Berries of red currant and gooseberry - 1 kg each;
Sugar 0.5 kg
Cooking:
Go through the berries, removing dry inflorescences and stalks, wash them. Do not mix the berries, both masses must be prepared separately. Divide sugar into two equal parts and add each part to heat-resistant containers with berries. Mash the berries slightly and place the containers in an oven preheated to 180ºϹ for 25-30 minutes. When the berry masses thicken, remove them and refrigerate to rub through a sieve and remove the cake. Add 100 ml of boiling water to each container, stir and pour the mashed potatoes from the berries into separate, uniform size. The form must first be lined with parchment. Put in the oven again, but already at a temperature of 100-120ºϹ to evaporate the water. When the juice has a viscous consistency, turn off the oven and open the door, but do not remove the mold until it is completely cooled. If necessary, to dry the marmalade, preheat the oven to 50-60ºϹ two or three times. When the marmalade is ready, sprinkle its surface with water or syrup. Transfer the marmalade from one form on top of another layer, dampen the parchment and remove it. Sprinkle with sugar and let dry. After that, turn the form over, just remove the parchment from the bottom layer, again sprinkle with sugar the moist surface of the back layer. Cut the finished marmalade into pieces and put in a storage box lined with parchment. Keep this marmalade in cool conditions, avoiding high humidity.
Recipe 6. Marmalade at home from orange juice on gelatin
Ingredients:
Juice of red oranges 1.0 l
Fructose 150 g
Gelatin 50 g
Cooking:
If you use ready-made, pasteurized juice, you only need to heat it to dissolve fructose. Approximately 200 ml of the juice taken is poured into a separate bowl, add gelatin to it and heat in a water bath until completely dissolved. Pour the dissolved gelatin into the total mass of juice in a thin stream, stirring continuously. Pour the gelled juice into molds and refrigerate to solidify.
Gelatin based marmalade is best prepared in small quantities so that you can immediately consume it. Keep it in the cold, remembering that even at room temperature the gelatin begins to “melt”, and the gelled mass spreads and it is almost impossible to restore the properties of gelatin.
Recipe 7. Marmalade at home "Rainbow"
Ingredients:
Kiwi
Oranges
Coconut milk
Blueberries
Sea buckthorn
Cranberry
Red grapes
Sugar syrup (or molasses)
Agar agar
Cooking:
For multi-colored marmalade, use fruit juice of different colors, in the same amount. Add syrup or molasses to each juice in a 1: 1 ratio. Agar-agar use in proportion: for 100 ml of juice - 10 g of agar. We prepare the masses for the colored dessert separately, in turn: combine the juice with agar, add the syrup, bring to a boil and pour into a rectangular shape with a high side. Agar hardens quickly, so you can immediately begin to prepare the next layer of marmalade. We prepare it in exactly the same way and pour it on the frozen, first layer. We alternate juices in any order: it is important that the layers are bright and contrasting with respect to each other.
You can take more coconut milk for the preparation of such marmalade (or replace it with cream), and alternate each layer of fruit marmalade with white marmalade. At the end of the work, cut the frozen layer into pieces.
Marmalade at home - useful tips and tricks
Marmalade - a delicious dessert. It can also be a useful dessert, if you avoid excessive consumption of sugar in the cooking process. The main thing to remember is that sugar does not affect the stability of the dense, gelled structure of marmalade. A dense consistency is formed by pectin, agar or gelatin, the amount of which can be changed in the formulation, depending on the desired effect.
To make marmalade absolutely dietary product, replace sugar with honey. This is easy to do in any recipe. But for this, one nuance must be taken into account: if you do not like a very sweet dessert, then the ratio of sugar to honey is approximately 2: 1, that is, honey must be used half as much as sugar. The explanation is simple: honey contains free fructose molecules, which affect the taste.
