Three years and a day marmalade
Tulips provided by the botany of J’s desire.Yesterday J and I celebrated our three-years-together anniversary. My present to her, besides a poem I wrote for the occasion, was to not make marmalade.
My small batch marmalade (with fruit prepared earlier in the day, stewing in the fridge as directed by the recipe) didn’t seem like an entire-evening project, but I decided not to risk it. After all, me wandering around the kitchen in a minor state of panic, talking to myself (even just for an hour or two), was not what I had in mind for our anniversary evening either. Instead, we cooked dinner (J cooked, I watched and washed beets) and later danced around the house to Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton and Fiest (Kenny Rogers and the Constantines made a few duet appearances in there, too).
This is my first blog post (though not my first jam/jelly/marmalade adventure) about canning. I’ll get into more detail for all you first-timers in another post. For now, I’ve run to the wire and need to post this for the Tigress Can Jam to meet our monthly deadline. Wary, new-to-canning Jammakers please stay tuned for a series of canning & preserving basics and how-to posts, with real-deal tips since recipes never go exactly according to plan (and are never as easy as they imply.)
Three-Citrus Marmalade
using Eugenia Bone’s recipe from her book, Well-Preserved, and followed as closely as possible
I used the following ingredients:
1 grapefruit
3 organic blood oranges
4 regular (small organic) lemons—my co-op only had two bottom-of-the barrel, mushy Meyer lemons so I opted for regular ones
4 cups of sugar
1/2 teaspoon unsalted butter
Her recipe worked well, and I’m really glad I measured the pulp (like she said to do) after I food processed the fruit. I ended up with 4 cups of pulp (instead of the projected 5 cups); thus I decreased sugar to 4 cups. Citrus marmalade-ing requires a 1-to-1 ratio of pulp to sugar. Yes, this may seem like a lot of sugar, but that’s the deal. Don’t freak out. Just eat your sweet spread in moderation.
The only other real variation to Eugenia’s recipe was my letting the pulp/rind mix sit overnight instead of the two hours she directed (a relationship-saving measure).
Let me just vent for a moment my usual sticky-situations and jam-bitches:
1. Candy thermometers drive me batty in jam/jelly/marmalade making endeavors. They like for you to submerge the thermometer in like 3 or 4 inches of the liquid to get an accurate reading, for that elusive 220 degree F measurement. Well, as most of you Can Jammers know, preserves are best made in small batches (that rarely top 2 inches in the pan). Simple physics and measurement (plus the need to constantly stir, to avoid scorching your high-sugar-content liquids) will soon lead you to realize that striving to achieve accuracy in measurement might leave you at the end of your rope. I still don’t get the spoon test to measure gelling point, alas I’m a slave to the thermometer.
Today I tilted the pan, while keeping it over the flame—just after a good stir—and let Miss Thermometer get her elusive reading. This was my most successful measurement in all my sweet spread making thus far. I’ll continue to do it this way in the future unless anyone can help me figure out the damn spoon gel test (like how to do it while also continuing to stir the pot.)
2. I thought I could use a smaller canner pot since I was making such a small batch, a bunch of short jars. But the 3-inches of water needed to top the jars ended that pipe-dream. My pot would’ve been the great jacuzzi incident of 2010, bubbles erupting over my littler pot’s rim. No good. I had to lug out the big-rig canner pot. Not terrible, but next time I’ll remember that it takes AT LEAST 30 minutes for all the water needed for jar coverage in that pot to boil. I cut sterilizing the jars a little too close to marmalade jar-time and had at-temp marmalade waiting sort of patiently as I pulled the sterilized jars out of the canner. A little stressful.
I did remember to wear my industrial-strength, pretty gloves today, though. I usually always (minorly) burn myself in the canning process, so today was a pleasant exception. I don’t recommend skipping the jar lifter or anything, but at least you’re protected during the little splashes or might just grab the slippery little, sterlized jar with your hands as you pull it out of the boiling water and set it on the counter.
3. No matter how accurately you follow a recipe, how many cups of pulp and whatever you put in the thing, you will never get the right amount of half-pint/pint jar outputs as described in a recipe. ALWAYS prepare and sterilize extra jars.
I ended up with a whole pint extra today (even though I had 1 whole cup less fruit pulp). WTF, dudes? Ah, well, more for J and me (and our pancakes and concoctions!)
4. The actual canning still took 2 hours (not including fruit prep). There’s just no such thing as a quick and easy batch. Don’t delude yourself.
I did have extrememly good preparation and mise en place (shit in order BEFORE you start). So I had a rather pleasant morning marmalading experience.
Quick run-down of successful things
1. The triple-citrus loot: 1 pint already hit the fridge, and 2 half-pints, 3 quarter-pints added to the larder.
2. A happily anniversaried J
3. My Tigress Can Jam creation for the month, check.
4. My kitchen’s not sticky because I did such a good job preparing myself. Woot.
Canning, Fruit, Preserved Foods: Sweet, Recipes
Reader Comments (15)
I struggle with all the things you outlined above. I did read that another visual queue is wait for the small frothy white bubbles to turn clear and get bigger.
I love this idea of putting your marm in the food processor. I saw it over at Sugarcrafter, too, and I love it because I wasn't quite the fan of the big pieces of rind in my marmalade. What a great idea!
As a new canner, I'm really looking forward to your "canning for beginners" info!
Thanks for the tip Keesha. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one out there trying not to botch every recipe I encounter :)
Whew! Reading about your experience makes me feel not as helpless at canning as I thought I was.
Looks gorgeous. I love the Eugenia Bone book: I worked my way through at least half the recipes last summer (including the tuna which I was a bit scared of but which turned out great) I didn't make this marmalade though... so its great to see how it turned out!
My friend Sara at Three Clever Sisters made the same marmalade as you and she liked the result, too. I like the color of your marmalade!
Your jars are so very pretty. Hang in there! You'll get the hang of this canning stuff eventually. Can I just say how much I'm *loving* discovering so many urban homesteading sites through the canjam??
Carter, I ended up doing a fine chop on the rinds, matchstick and smaller, with my 8" kitchen knife. But I bet putting them in the food processor with the pulp would do just fine. I think the rind size is all about aesthetics anyway, My first ever marmalade had some awfully huge chunks of rind that were a bit much to chew :)
Wendy, I'm there with you. Eventually we'll get it down pat, but for now at least we know we're not alone!!
Thanks Talia, Andrea and Doris for the props! What a difference a blood orange makes, such color!
This Can Jam is so inspiring, getting thrown in the mix with all you rock-star canners out there, learning from each other and knowing there are pots on stoves across Americal Canvolution rocks 2010.
Sounds great! Yum! Fun post. Looking forward to future posts.
Thanks Meg!
Hi...
I really like the way you wrote the article. This is very emotional... Thanks....
The marmalade sounds delicious, and your anniversary-saving decision to delay making it wise ;)
A couple of tips: you do not need to cover the jars with three inches of boiling water. One to two inches is fine (plus an additional inch or two of air space between the water surface and the rim of the canner). You actually can reduce the sugar with acidic fruits such as citrus safely, but the trouble is that then you don't get a good gel. Best book for detailed explanation of canning safety rules in my opinion: "Putting Food By."
I agree with you about the frustration of candy thermometers. Maybe I'll get to show you how that spoon test works some time! It's one of those "easy once you know" things...but took me ages to learn.
Thanks Leda for the tips, I'll check that book out. Always looking for good advice from people with the know-how! Hopefully we'll meet soon.
Do you know a good alternative to using butter if you wanted to make this completely vegan? Would vegetable shortening work without changing the flavor?
Thanks!
Mr. dinker/Amanda,
You can skip the butter entirely. Eugenia's recipe has it just for cutting down foaming but none of the other marmalade recipes do. You can just be diligent about skimming foam, which is what I do with my marmalades nowadays!