Lemon and Pink Grapefruit Marmalade

I barely squeaked in a batch of marmalade  last year so I’m determined to get with it this year and stock some favorites. The citrus that is available now is just too wonderful to ignore, both fresh and for creating marmalade. This week I turned lemons and pink grapefruit into one of my favorites. The fun thing about following Rachel Saunders’ method for creating marmalade is that the process is broken down into steps that are spread out over three days. What may seem like a daunting task is spread out so that it is easy to do and doesn’t command a large amount of time on one day — need I say more?

Day one: Cut lemons into eights, placed them in a pan and covered them with water.

Day two: Cook the lemons to create a syrupy lemon juice.

Prepare and cook sliced lemons.

Juice grapefruit, prepare and cook the rind.

Here’s the fresh grapefruit juice and the cooking liquid from the grapefruit.

 

Day three: Prepare the grapefruit halves by scraping out the centers and cutting the rind into small strips.

 

Juice fresh lemons.

Assemble all the prepared ingredients plus sugar in a copper preserving pan for cooking.

It’s beautiful already! When cooking is complete, ladle marmalade into sterilized jars and remove trapped air by inserting a knife and running it around the outer edge of the jar.

Clean jar rims and place caps on the jars.

You can see that I got 12 half-pint jars and a small ramekin from this batch. The jars were placed in a 250 degree oven for 30 minutes and allowed to cool at room temperature overnight. Scones anyone?

You can see more of my preserving adventures by choosing the “In the Kitchen” category at the right. You can find Rachel’s book here.