Blood orange jam

Jam with the colour of a beautiful sunset

In the latest issue of "Mad & Bolig" februar 2014 there is a food theme on oranges with plenty of interesting recipes incl one recipe on orange jam.

The photo of the jam looks quiet gelled, however looking in details in the actual recipe, things are NOT adding up !!!! Following the recipe step by step would give you a more liquid jam type as there is not extra addition of pectin powder into the jam.

So as usual, when I find something is not adding up in, I call someone, who should be able to answer my many questions. And this time I called a world leading pectin experts, which I know at work to get her suggestions on making a gelled jam.

For you to actually extract the natural occurring pectin in citrus fruits for jam making in your kitchen you need to keep the white part of the peel, even though this will bring bitterness into the jam. Also the acidity of the mixture needs to be lowered, when working with oranges, so addition of lemon juice is needed.

The boiling time before addition of sugar should be increased to around 45 minutes and the cooking time after the sugar addition should be reduced significantly to 5 minutes to avoid pre-gelling of the jam !!! And finally you will need a higher amount of sugar to get the jam to gel. I needed up with a rather thick jam, which was not gellified, so I should either have added more sugar and/or used more lemon juice.
Well, details !!! The flavour is amazing and the colour is beautiful like a sunset :-) The addition of star anise and vanilla is not dominating in any way.

UPDATE & April 2014:
The Tea Time Table is a monthly blogging event managed Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Jane from The Hedge Combers. The theme for April 2014 is has been selected by Karen to be jams, curds and preserves, so here this blood orange jam is fitting perfect.

Blood orange jam:

• 5 organic blood orange
• 1 lemon - juice
• water
• ½ star anise
• ½ vanilla pod - only the pod
• 1000 g sugar

1. Remove the peel in strings using a citrus peeler.
2. Cut the blood oranges into thinner slices, which is cut into smaller pieces.
3. Place the peel, blood orange pieces, blood orange juice in a mixing bowl, where the blood oranges are covered with water.
4. Store the blood orange cold in the refrigerator night over. 
5. Pour the blood orange mass in a bigger cooking with lemon juice, star anise and vanilla pod. Weight the mass, so the amount of sugar can be calculated. I used one part blood orange mass to one part of sugar.
6. Let the blood orange mass cook gentle for 45 minutes.
7. Remove the blood orange pieces from the cooking pot and blend then into a homogeneous mass.
8. Add the blood orange mass back into the cooking pot together with the sugar.
9. Bring the jam back to the boiling point. Let it boil for 5 minutes.
10. Prepare the jam glasses by filling them with boiling water to increase the shelf-life of your jam. Another thing you can do to increase the shelf-life is to store the jam cold afterwards.
11. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass.
12. You can put sunshine on your bread and buns :-)