My lemon tree has all but stopped providing fruit. It is a very productive tree, I have had constant lemons all year. But right now my lemon is happily producing its next crop. Thankfully lemons are really cheap at the moment, so its a good time to use other people's gluts. So yesterday I made lemon marmalade.
I had never made marmalade before, but have made lots of jam in my time. I took a recipe in the Commonsense cookery book - Book 1 ( pg 235) as my starting point. This number is a staple (oops - I guess that's a pun?) of Homescience teaching at High Schools in NSW (or at least it was the hundred-million years ago that I was in High School). Here is the recipe and below shows the way I wrangled with it.
Marmalade
1 kg fruit (I used 1.2 kgs)
1 kg sugar (I used 700 gms)
2 litres water
(I added the juice and zested rind of an additional 2 lemons)
The recipe calls you to "wash and slice the fruit thinly, remove the seeds, centre pith and thick ends". I did exactly as it said for two of the lemons and then I changed the way I wanted to approach it. I did wash and remove seeds and pith but I decided that instead of relatively thick knife-cut rind, I would prefer thin rind so got to on the rest of the fruit with the zester.
The recipe calls you to "place in a container cover with water until rind is soft and let stand overnight". But I figured that seeing as my rind was so finely zested that the rind didn't need softening (and I am an impatient sort of person...) so I got cooking.
Then it says to "boil fruit and water covered until rind is soft - about 1 hour". I tossed everything in at once, sugar and all and added the juice and rind of 2 more lemons. I used only 700 gms sugar, in part because from experience the Commonsense cookery book has quite a sweet tooth. However I also thought that if I took the sugar down too far then it might be too bitter.
I guess I cooked it for about an hour? Not sure, but it reduced quite a lot and turned a lovely golden yellow/orange colour. I kept testing it to see if it had set by placing a small amount on a cold plate and pushing it around when cool to see if it wrinkled, but it wasn't really wrinkling. But I felt like it might have been set enough and so put it into hot jars. It made 3 jars and a ramekin. The ramekin made it easy to check if it had set.
To be honest I was quite conflicted - would it set? It didn't react to the wrinkle test like jam does? But then again, knowing that citrus has high pectin levels, I thought it probably would. I left it on the bench to cool overnight. In the morning I took a look at it, it certainly had set! Yay for instinct.
It's such a lovely colour, the balance of bitter to sweet is quite good, although still a little too sweet for me. Next time I will take the sugar down further.
So in the last week or so I have made strawberry jam and now this lemon marmalade. I have more than enough home-made jam for our household but I could be persuaded to make some plum jam when other people's gluts mean that plums are plentiful.
I had never made marmalade before, but have made lots of jam in my time. I took a recipe in the Commonsense cookery book - Book 1 ( pg 235) as my starting point. This number is a staple (oops - I guess that's a pun?) of Homescience teaching at High Schools in NSW (or at least it was the hundred-million years ago that I was in High School). Here is the recipe and below shows the way I wrangled with it.
Marmalade
1 kg fruit (I used 1.2 kgs)1 kg sugar (I used 700 gms)
2 litres water
(I added the juice and zested rind of an additional 2 lemons)
The recipe calls you to "wash and slice the fruit thinly, remove the seeds, centre pith and thick ends". I did exactly as it said for two of the lemons and then I changed the way I wanted to approach it. I did wash and remove seeds and pith but I decided that instead of relatively thick knife-cut rind, I would prefer thin rind so got to on the rest of the fruit with the zester.
The recipe calls you to "place in a container cover with water until rind is soft and let stand overnight". But I figured that seeing as my rind was so finely zested that the rind didn't need softening (and I am an impatient sort of person...) so I got cooking.
Then it says to "boil fruit and water covered until rind is soft - about 1 hour". I tossed everything in at once, sugar and all and added the juice and rind of 2 more lemons. I used only 700 gms sugar, in part because from experience the Commonsense cookery book has quite a sweet tooth. However I also thought that if I took the sugar down too far then it might be too bitter.I guess I cooked it for about an hour? Not sure, but it reduced quite a lot and turned a lovely golden yellow/orange colour. I kept testing it to see if it had set by placing a small amount on a cold plate and pushing it around when cool to see if it wrinkled, but it wasn't really wrinkling. But I felt like it might have been set enough and so put it into hot jars. It made 3 jars and a ramekin. The ramekin made it easy to check if it had set.
To be honest I was quite conflicted - would it set? It didn't react to the wrinkle test like jam does? But then again, knowing that citrus has high pectin levels, I thought it probably would. I left it on the bench to cool overnight. In the morning I took a look at it, it certainly had set! Yay for instinct.
It's such a lovely colour, the balance of bitter to sweet is quite good, although still a little too sweet for me. Next time I will take the sugar down further.
So in the last week or so I have made strawberry jam and now this lemon marmalade. I have more than enough home-made jam for our household but I could be persuaded to make some plum jam when other people's gluts mean that plums are plentiful.
Very nice, and yet another good use for lemons! Must keep that one in mind...
ReplyDeleteI had it on some heavy bread toast this morning, yum.
DeleteOur text of the day was Cookery the Australian Way and I too still refer to it - really good for basic recipes. CTAW Lemon Marmalade is 2kg lemons, 4 cups water, 4 cups sugar and as my mother currently has a lemon glut its probably time I gave it a go.
ReplyDeleteAren't the titles too funny? Thanks for the CTAW recipe.
DeleteYes! I had that book for my Home Ec book, too! Alas, I suspect that after high school I decided that cooking was for silly people who couldn't buy pre-made stuff from the supermarket and got rid of it. Oops?
DeleteI'm thinking of making some lemon butter as I have lemons and eggs! Have you made it? I've not tried before. I might give your marmalade a go, too. I'm not one for sweet things much but I do like the tang of lemons and limes.
ReplyDeleteOh boy, have I made lemon butter. Great way to use up eggs. Really delicious.
DeleteI have never made a lemon marmalade, but I love it. Thanks for inspiration, lemons are very affordable this time of the year, I shell try to make my own marmalade then too :)
ReplyDeleteIt's really lovely, I had it on toast this morning.
DeleteThat looks lovely - the colour is wonderful and the texture looks perfect. I made orange marmalade earlier in the year by pressure cooking the whole oranges to soften the rind. It worked really well, and the texture of slicing the rind was amazing - just the coolest thing to slice. Problem is, I didn't like the slices of rind in the finished product! Now I have jars and jars of the stuff to get through - maybe I should sieve it.
ReplyDeleteOh I like the pressure cooked version - good idea. I don't mind the peel as long as it's thin. But people like marmalade in all sorts of different ways.
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