When you grow your own produce, you pick at the peak of freshness…and sometimes nature isn’t on the same timeline as you, so you are rushed to eat, pickle, preserve, dehydrate, cook, or bake..pronto!
My friend, Virginie, gave me a beautiful bag of Meyer lemons…and let me tell you, it was a BIG bag! So I have a duo of recipes for Meyer lemons: Fig with Meyer Lemon Cream Tart – and this lip smacking recipe for Meyer Lemon Marmalade!
I learned a lot making the Easy Breezy Blackberry Jam. I like to keep recipes simple, so I knew I didn’t want to use fruit pectin from a package. I stumbled on Simply Recipe’s use of the pith and seeds to produce your own pectin from the lemons! With Meyer lemon’s sweet and tart profile, I was excited to make marmalade to use as a condiment, in a glaze, baking, maybe even ice cream! With all the lemons I had on my hands, there would be plenty of marmalade for R&D!
What you will need:
5 cups of Meyer lemon, cleaned, sliced into 1/4” pieces, pith, membrane and seeds removed (reserve pith, membrane and seeds to make the pectin)
5 cups water
5 cups granulated sugar
Candy or instant-read thermometer
Cheesecloth and cooking twine
Sterilized canning jars (4 pint size jars is what this recipe makes) – see below for sterilization methods
Get your lemons ready:
To cut your lemons into the ideal size, cut off both ends of the lemon and cut in half lengthwise – for each half of lemon, slice into 4 equal segments.
For each segment, be sure to cut the pithy core, any exposed membrane that surrounds the segments of lemon, and remove all seeds. Place the pith, membrane and seeds into a bowl. – you will use them to make your pectin.
Take the lemon segments and slice them into 1/4” pieces and place in a large bowl.
The size of lemons vary, so you will need to measure out 5 cups of the 1/4” pieces for this recipe.
Let’s get marmalade making:
In a large pot, place your lemon segments and add the equal amount of water.
Place the pith, membrane and seeds in the middle of a piece of cheesecloth and secure tightly with cooking twine. Place the pectin bag into the large pot and tie to the handle for easy retrieval later in the recipe.
On high heat, bring the lemon and water to a strong boil, uncovered, for about 30-35 minutes – or until the peels are soft and cooked. You can test if a peel is ready by eating it (like how to test for pasta, but softer than al dente) – the peel should be soft – if there is any chew to the peel, keep cooking until fully soft.
Remove from heat and carefully remove the pectin bag and place in a bowl to cool.
When the pectin bag is cool to the touch, squeeze the bag into the pot of boiled lemons. You will release a thick white-ish liquid – this is the pectin!
Add the sugar into the pot of boiled lemons and pectin and bring to a boil on medium high heat.
Be sure to stir occasionally as the mixture starts to boil so that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pan. There may be some foam that comes up, if so, reduce the heat a bit and continue to stir.
Using the candy or instant-read thermometer, continue heating and stirring until the temperature hits 218-220F degrees. This could take 20-35 minutes. Make sure your thermometer is not hitting the bottom of the pot, so that it measures the temperature of the mixture accurately. Once you have hit 220F degrees, turn off the heat…it’s time to jar up your marmalade!
Working quickly and carefully, ladle your marmalade into the sterilized canning jars to 1/4” of the top of the jar – wipe off any drips or residue from the marmalade with a wet paper towel—seal the jar with the lid, securing tightly.
Place your sealed jars on a wire rack to cool overnight. You know you have a successful canning when you hear a “pop” sound from the lid letting you know a vacuum seal has been created. You will also see a slight indentation (or dimple) in the middle of the canning jar lid which indicates a vacuum seal has been achieved.
Tip:
This recipe uses Meyer lemons and there really is no other lemon substitute since the lemon has a thinner skin which makes it ideal for making it into marmalade.
Do not add sugar when you are first boiling the lemons and water – doing so will make your lemons firm up – and you do not want this, you want your lemons to be soft.
You do have the option to reduce the sugar, in which case, you will need to add one 1.75 oz. package of fruit pectin when you add the sugar.
Your marmalade may not be fully firm when you are ladling into the jar – don’t fear – your marmalade will set up as it cools.
To sterilize your jars, you have two options:
Oven method: Preheat your oven to 225F degrees. Place the jars, lids, and bands on a cookie sheet into the oven for 10 minutes. Turn the oven off and leave the jars, lids, and bands in the oven to keep them warm until you’re ready to use them for canning.
Boiling method: In a large pot, place empty jars right side up and lids and fill jars with hot (not boiling) water to one inch above the tops of the jars -- bring to a boil and boil 10 minutes -- carefully remove hot, sterilized jars one at a time and drain—you can leave the hot water left in your pot for processing filled jars (if you are using the water bath method for a different recipe).
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