Blood Orange Marmalade

I scored some blood oranges this year.   Actually, Eric scored them.    He's my citrus shopper.

We made some plain blood orange marmalade because it was pretty.   Really pretty.   Once I got all the fruit in the pot, it looked like this.   

Really pretty.

And the finished jam is gorgeous.




Blood Orange Marmalade
www.rurification.com

5 blood oranges, sectioned and zested
2 cups water
3 cups sugar

I followed the same procedure as before [see the post from two days ago on Four Fruit Marmalade].   Zest first.  Boil the zest in the water while you section the fruit.  Put the fruit, zest and sugar in a big pot and boil it until it reaches the gel point [220 degrees in Indiana].

Ladle into jars.  Process 10 minutes for canning.  [See Jam page, tab above, for more information.]

I kind of let this get too hot and when it was done it was very gelled.   Which is fine at room temp.  Nice even.   But once it's been refrigerated, it gets hard.    Way hard.   So keep that in mind if you end up with some of this batch.   Keep it at room temp until you open it, then eat it all so you don't have to refrigerate it.   Okay?  




Want the recipe for this Marmalade and a whole lot of other terrific jam recipes?   Check out my ebook:  A Simple Jar of Jam  at www.rurification.etsy.com.   You can preview the book by clicking the link on the sidebar.  Every purchase helps support this site.  Thank you!

Four Fruit Marmalade

Remember all that fruit I zested for you the other day?   I used it to make Four Fruit Marmalade.

I used grapefruit, oranges, blood oranges and meyer lemons.

It is dee-licious.

You should make some.


Four Fruit Marmalade
www.rurification.com

2 grapefruit, sectioned.  Zest one of them.
2 oranges, zested and sectioned.
2 blood oranges, zested and sectioned.
4 meyer lemons, zested and sectioned.
7 cups of sugar
1/2 tsp salt [to cut the bitter]

Do your zesting first.   Put the zest in a pot with 3 cups of water, bring it to a boil and let it boil happily until you have all the sectioning done.

I use a serrated grapefruit spoon for the sectioning.  Just cut the fruit in half and go at it.   Pull the seeds out as you find them.

I sectioned all the fruit into a bowl.   Between the fruit in the bowl and the liquid in the zest pot, there were roughly 7 cups of stuff.  That's why the 7 cups of sugar.   If you make a smaller batch, just remember that you want about the same amount of sugar as you have fruit stuff.

Put all the fruit stuff and the zest stuff in a good pot with a wide bottom.  Add the sugar and salt. Bring it all to a boil.  There's no pectin in this recipe, so you're going to have to boil it down until the gelling point - 220 degrees here in Indiana.   Check my Jam page [tab above] for the gelling points at higher altitudes.  

Let it boil hard.    Mine boiled until the foam started creeping up the sides of the pan.   That's normal.   You might stir it once in a while to make sure it's not sticking.

When you reach the gelling temp, turn off the heat, ladle into jars, put the lids on  and process 10 minutes for canning.   [See my Jam page, tab above, for more information on processing for canning.]

Note:  If you use a pot that's too small, the jam will start to brown before it reaches the gelling point.   The sugars will caramelize before enough liquid boils out so start out with a good big pot.  It's OK if your jam is way down in there because the pot seems too big.   It isn't too big.  It's efficient.   Efficient is good.

I made a little extra of this marmalade because, guess what!

Under Indiana law, I am allowed to sell my jam now as a Home Based Vendor.   This means I have to label things with a specific disclaimer and I have to do pH testing of every batch, but that's not a problem.

How do you like the front side of my labels?


Want the recipe for this Marmalade and a whole lot of other terrific jam recipes?   Check out my ebook:  A Simple Jar of Jam  at www.rurification.etsy.com.   You can preview the book by clicking the link on the sidebar.  Every purchase helps support this site.  Thank you!