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.
