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Marmalade advice

P

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
It's that time of year! The seville oranges are in the veg shop! Can anyone give me any well-trialled advice about making marmalade for diabetics. I have to make the normal high-sugar version for the family but I'd like to make some for myself too! Can I use my normal recipe but substitute Erythritol for the usual high pectin jam sugar? Would I need to get a packet of pectin to put in with it? Seville oranges are very sour, and Erythritol is apparently fine for diabetics, but has anyone tried it? Anyone got a tried and tested recipe to share?
Hoping against Hope!
 
I'm not sure it would set properly with a substitute sugar and it is the high sugar that gives it keeping quality.
You could try reducing the sugar and adding a powdered pectin.
It may not be worth it if you are only having 1 or 2 teaspoons at a time.
 
I'd go a bit further than @Leadinglights -- make proper marmalade absolutely loaded with flavour from Seville oranges and use far less per slice of toast than you would if using commercial stuff. I do it that way, a pot lasts a couple of months and my post breakfast blood glucose keeps within bounds.
 
I make my own jam and marmalade, and find 65% of the sugar in a normal recipe is sufficient, it still keeps well for ages ( and tastes better!) Without sugar it would only keep for a short time in a fridge.
 
Low Carb Londoner is well regarded for her recipes. I haven't tried this one, but it doesn't look like an outrageously expensive gamble to have a go.

sugarfreelondoner.com

Sugar Free Orange Marmalade Recipe (Keto)

My sugar free orange marmalade recipe is so zesty - it's like spreading sunshine on your toast. Only 2.1g net carbs per serving!
sugarfreelondoner.com sugarfreelondoner.com
 
silentsquirrel said:
I make my own jam and marmalade, and find 65% of the sugar in a normal recipe is sufficient, it still keeps well for ages ( and tastes better!) Without sugar it would only keep for a short time in a fridge.
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I do not now about marmalade but my Mum makes her own jam.
On the rare occasion I eat shop bought jam, my biggest impression is that it does not taste of fruit - it just tastes of sugar.
Like you, my Mum uses less sugar. Her jam could probably last for ages if it didn't taste so good. She doesn't have diabetes (I am the only one in my family "blessed" with the D) and doesn't adapt the recipe for anyone who does. She reduces the sugar because it tastes better.
 
What are you intending to have your marmalade on? I would be more concerned about the bread/toast than a thin scrape of marmalade if that is your plan. I do very occasionally use marmalade but in a recipe like my duck with orange sauce at Christmas. In order to keep it longer because I take so long to get through a jar, I carefully boil it up in the jar in the microwave and then seal it again whilst still hot and then keep it at the back of the fridge when cold till I next need it. A jar can last me a few years like this..... but it sounds like you have others in the household eating it regularly, so I would say just use a smaller portion of normal and if having it on bread/toast then half the amount of that to reduce the overall carbs. There is going to be about 5g carbs in a teaspoon of marmalade and 15+g in a normal slice of bread.
 
A few years ago, I stayed in a small guest house in Andalusia.
This was not any guest house it was a vegetarian guest house in Spain run by a French chef.
(Ok, that is irrelevant but added to the wonder of the place.)
At breakfast we sat down at the window. It was a very old building with very thick walls so the window was deep. It was summer time and the window was wide open and the morning sunlight was streaming in. If I leaned out, I could touch the seville oranges growing at the side of the house. The same oranges that were used to make the huge pot of delicious marmalade we were handed to go with the freshly baked bread.

The guest house, the marmalade and the Alhambra in Granada were definitely the highlights of the trip.
The chap I travelled with ... less so.
 
I make a lower sugar plum jam. 60%sugar.
It sets fine but needs to be kept in the fridge once opened. My one and only attempt at marmalade failed miserably and refused to set.
I also agree with others saying a small amount is lower carb than the toast so enjoy in moderation. (Wherever that is :D)
 
One of the very few things I miss is the marrow and ginger conserve I used to make.
It was somewhere between a jam and a marmalade and ferociously ginger.
 
So many temptations. My mother used to make marmalade every year. I have never made jam. Like Cliff I liked ginger marmalade as a child. I am still fond of ginger. I used to buy one occasionally two jars of M and S Timperley rhubarb and ginger jam a year. When I was diagnosed in July I had an unopened jar which I donated to the local food bank. I threw away an opened jar of marmalade I had. I only ate the marmalade on a piece of bread when I had had a kipper so a jar lasted a year!

I am very tempted to buy another jar of the rhubarb jam. It is not a full size jar. However I like it on bread and the jam plus bread would be too high carb.

@helli that B and B sounds heavenly. Granada is somewhere l would love to visit, our Spanish teachers mothervis a GP in Granada. I have been to Sevilla and to one of the white villages when the blossom has been out.
 
saffron15 said:
I am very tempted to buy another jar of the rhubarb jam. It is not a full size jar. However I like it on bread and the jam plus bread would be too high carb.
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My ability to deal with carbs is quite low, but I can bake bread which is low enough in carbs for me, if I am careful. I divide it into rolls and freeze them as soon as they are cool after baking.
The dough has to be allowed to rise for as long as it took to reach the right size - which could be all night. A bread making machine was a total failure.
 
Just stacked the jars of freshly made marmalade in the cupboard and opened the first jar at breakfast. That tang on the toasted homemade bread. A delight.

No reduction in sugar, just smaller amount on the toast.
 
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