Marmalades

At the June Harvest Basket Lizzie was asking for a grapefruit marmalade recipe as she has lots of grapefruits this year. I haven't tried this one but it is from a good source. Here it is.

Grapefruit Marmalade

2 kg grapefruit

4 litres water

6 kg sugar

Cut the grapefruit into quarters, remove the seeds and white centres and slice the fruit finely. Put the pips and centres into a small basin with a little of the water. Cover the grapefruit with the rest of the water and stand for 24 hours. Next day pour the water off the pips and add to the fruit. Put into pan and boil for 1 hour. Add the sugar and boil until fruit is soft and will set when tested. Bottle and seal.

Someone brought mandarins to the june Harvest Basket. I'm sorry I don't know who it was but they said the fruit was cumquats but I am pretty sure they are mandarins. Yummy anyway. Today I followed a recipe for Mandarin Marmalade that I have not made before. It was a bit of a fiddle as I had to boil the fruit until the liquid was reduced to half and then measure it and add cup for cup in sugar. It seemed like a lot of sugar but it seems to have turned out alright. However in future I will stick to my lemon marmalade recipe for mandarins. No fiddle with

that one. I will bring some jars of the marmalade I made today to the July Harvest Basket.

Lots of Lemons

One minute we had no lemons on our tree and the next the tree is full of lemons that have all ripened at once. If this is also true for you, here are a couple of ideas for using some of them. Tried and true recipes we use all the time.

Lemon Cordial

1.5kg caster sugar

zest and juice of 7 or 8 lemons

1/4 cup citric acid

1 litre boiling water

Combine all ingredients in a pyrex or heat-proof china bowl (not metal). Stir until sugar is dissolved. Cover and stand over night.

Strain into sterilized bottles. I find it makes about 3 wine bottles worth.

Don't throw away the zest that is left over. It is yummy on ice-cream or stirred into plain yoghurt and keeps for quite a while covered in the fridge. 

Lemon Marmalade

6 lemons

7 cups boiling water

6 cups sugar

Slice lemons and cover with boiling water. Let stand overnight. Cook gently until rinds are soft, approximately 20 - 30 minutes. Add sugar, stir until dissolved and quickly boil 25 - 45 minutes or until fruit will gel. Put into sterilized jars.

I find it usually takes about 35 minutes and makes about 8 jam jars worth.

I have used the same recipe for limes as well as mandarins and it has worked just as well. I've also made lemon and lime.