The perfect marriage between Christmas mincemeat/Christmas pudding and tangy citrus marmalade. What could be better for your toast or croissants throughout the festive season!
Why you’ll love this recipe
- This is the perfect hybrid between mincemeat and marmalade
- Perfect for vegetarians who don’t like Christmas mincemeat, they get the flavour without the suet
- It’s a quick marmalade, cooked in about 30 minutes!
- There aren’t very many ingredients.
- This is a perfect wee foodie gift for Christmas.
Ingredients for Christmas Pudding Marmalade
The fruity part – I’ve used a mix of unwaxed oranges and a lemon. You could use grapefruit in the mix, or mandarines, whatever you fancy. Just make sure it all comes to 1 kilo in weight.
Sweet stuff – I have used a mix of normal granulated white sugar and a little dark brown sugar. I like the almost caramel-like taste that brown sugar gives things. It makes this marmalade really have that rich Christmas pudding-type taste.
Mixed dried fruit – I used Tesco’s luxury dried fruit mix. This is a presoaked mix of sultanas, cherries, raisins, apricots, cranberries and mixed candied peel. If you haven’t got the presoaked type of dried fruit mix then simply put the fruit in a bowl and pour on about 4 tbsp of brandy into it, mix well and leave it for about an hour to plump up. You can use tea, water, orange juice or whisky to do this.
Get spicy – I really wanted to keep things simple with this Christmas pudding marmalade, so instead of giving you a list of spices to measure out I just used ready-made Mixed Spice from the supermarket.
Booze – No self-respecting Christmas pudding would ever be seen without some hooch in there and my marmalade is no exception! I have used brandy but you could use whisky or rum if you like. Alternatively, you can miss this out altogether.
What is Mixed Spice blend?
Mixed spice is a blend of spices we can buy here in the UK in most supermarkets. It is used a lot in baking (especially at Christmas) and contains a mixture of cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and pimento. It is a bit like the American Pumpkin Pie spice blend or the Apple Pie Spice blend.
How to remove the wax from fruit
If you haven’t got unwaxed fruit, don’t panic. Simply scrub the fruit in hot soapy water using a nail brush. This will remove the wax coating. Then rinse thoroughly and pat dry – voila! unwaxed fruit!
The complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making this recipe can be found on the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.
How to make this marmalade
I love this Christmas pudding marmalade recipe because it’s so simple and unlike many marmalade recipes it is pretty quick to cook too. You are not boiling peel for hours and losing the will to live.
The first step is to peel the zest from two of the oranges and the lemon and then chop this nice and finely. Try to avoid the white pith here.
Now chop up all the fruit into chunky pieces as this will make it easier for your food processor to handle. Remove any pips/stones/pits, whatever you want to call them. Blitz the fruit in your processor, I had to do mine in a couple of batches as I have a small processor. You don’t want a puree here, you want tiny bits of fruit so don’t let the machine run, use the pulse and check how it’s doing.
Next comes the cooking part of the marmalade and quite honestly this couldn’t be easier. Simply put the citrus fruit into a nice big pan along with the finely chopped peel, the mixed spice and your two different sugars. Heat this gently to dissolve the sugar entirely.
Add the mixed fruit and raise the temperature to a rolling boil. This is when you will know that a big high sided pot is the right thing to use as you really don’t want your Christmas pudding marmalade decorating the entire kitchen!
I boiled mine for about 30 minutes and it reached that magical 105C setting temperature. Check your marmalade frequently to see how it’s doing, yours might come to a set in 20 minutes or so.
Check out my jam-making page on the link below that tells you all about setting points and how to check for them.
Finally, stir in the booze and you are ready to ladle that Christmas pudding marmalade into sterilised jars.
The inspiration
I love Christmas and making foodie gifts is my big thing. Bringing together the classic rich and fruity flavours of a Christmas pudding and making it into a tangy marmalade that you can use on your toast seemed like the perfect thing to do.
Why had I never thought of this before? After all I make my Vegetarian/Vegan Mincemeat every year and I make lots of marmalades. This Christmas pudding marmalade is almost like a marriage made in heaven, the perfect Christmas preserve!
New to preserving? Then don’t panic, I can take you from zero to hero in no time at all.
Just check out these handy articles to get you heading in the right direction fast;
How to make great jam and marmalade
How to make chutney and relish
How to sterilise jars and bottles
How much does this recipe make?
I got 6 x 350g jars of Christmas pudding marmalade from this recipe. I wouldn’t double up the recipe if you want more, simply make another batch.
How long will this marmalade keep?
Your Christmas pudding marmalade should keep for up to a year in a cool dark place. Once opened store in the fridge and use within a month.
How to use this marmalade
Serve your Christmas pudding marmalade on toast or croissants for a festive breakfast treat.
Use this luscious marmalade instead of mincemeat in traditional mince pies, dare to be different!
You can use Christmas pudding marmalade in other festive bakes like my Christmas Baklava that is super easy to make.
Spoon some of this Christmas Pudding Marmalade onto either a round of Camembert or Brie and bake in the oven, then serve with crackers or crusty bread, yum!
Give it as a gift, come on this Christmas Pudding Marmalade just has to be the perfect foodie gift for Christmas.
This recipe makes a great foodie gift, so why not check out my post on how to make Christmas hampers.
Looking for more Christmas preserve recipes to try? Then check these out before you go;
Dried Fruits & Nuts Preserved In Whisky
Christmas Cranberry Jam With Gin
Spiced Cranberry And Orange Marmalade
Vegetarian/Vegan Christmas Mincemeat
Finally, if you do try this recipe don’t forget to leave a comment/star rating below as I just love to hear from readers. Want more Larder Love? Then follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter and sign up for my newsletter too of course.
Christmas Pudding Marmalade
Ingredients
- 1 lemon combined fruit must weigh 1 kilo in total
- 4 oranges
- 125 g dark brown sugar
- 875 g granulated sugar
- 1 tbsp mixed spice or apple pie spice mix
- 250 g mixed dried fruit I used luxury soaked mixed dried fruit
- 4 tbsp brandy
Instructions
- Peel zest from 2 oranges and the lemon and chop finely
- Chop the fruit and discard seeds/pips and pulse in food processor
- Heat the fruit in a big pan with the spice mix and the sugars on gentle heat till sugar dissolved
- Add dried fruit and raise temperature to boiling for about 20-30 minutes till setting point reached 105C
- Stir in the brandy
- Ladle into sterilised jars
Christmas Marmalade….
Good Morning, Karon:
I am an avid baseball fan, and I am here to cheer, YOU HAVE HIT THIS ONE OUT OF THE PARK!
Thanks for the Christmas Gift ideas.
Elaine
Hi Elaine,
What a lovely thing to say. So pleased you like this recipe so much.
K
This is really lovely Karon! And yes, gorgeous with baked Camembert and the filling for puff pastry mince pies.
I’d love to make quite a few jars for gifts for your hamper idea. Unfortunately, the oranges are too pricey (I live in the stick up a mountain!), so do you think this would work with the tinned Seville orange?
Hi Donna
Yes, you could use tinned Seville oranges in this. Just check your sweetness as they can be a little sour.
K
Tastes great – didn’t get round to making it for Christmas, but it’s a lovely thing to brighten a soggy January day. One thing I would say would be to start checking for the setting point before the 30 minutes of boiling are up. I checked at about 20 minutes and I reckon I just caught it from turning into toffee. So it’s got a fabulous flavour but doesn’t spread as well as it could. Just means I have to spread it thicker…..what a pity 😉
Hi Carolyn
Glad you made my marmalade recipe. Setting point all depends on your heat source really. My old Aga takes the full 30 minutes so I take my timings from that. Anyway I’m thrilled you like the resulting marmalade and will modify the recipe.
K
Hi, Karen-
Can you tell me what spices are in the ‘Mixed Spice’ product you used? I’m in the US and not sure I will have the same item in our groceries. If I know the ingredients, I’ll at least know what to look for or the ingredients to make my own concoction! Thank you.
Hi Kelly
Mixed spice is a blend of cinnamon, pimento, ginger, cloves, coriander and nutmeg. You can use American pumpkin spice blend or Apple pie spice blend instead.
K
Going to make this to use up dried fruit before it’s out of date, do you throw away the pith?how does it set without any pith or pips.
Hi Jeanette
Please just follow the recipe, I make it every year and it works just fine.
K
Looks lovely going to make for hampers
Hi Jeanette
Hope everyone likes it
K