Purau valley marmalade recipe
Bursts of fresh colour amidst the winter frosts. It seems odd that our delicious, fresh citrus ripen in winter and early spring, but what a fantastic time to take these beauties into a warm, cosy kitchen to make the year’s supply of homemade marmalade. Far lower in sugar than shop bought preserves, with no added preservatives, or colour (why would you!), this 5 fruit marmalade recipe is delicious and can awaken the taste buds atop your favourite toast for an uplifting breakfast, curled up in the warmth of the winter sun.
I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by dear friends with citrus trees a plenty to add grapefruit, orange and mandarin to our own lemon & lime bounty. If you’re after a beautiful place to retreat for the weekend - check out Manaakimai
Manaaki Mai lodge - Purau valley
Recipe
This one contains grapefruit as I love the tangy zing of these fruit, but if you don’t like, or can’t have grapefruit just mix up the fruit types to your liking. As long as they’re roughly equal in quantity, it will work a treat. Use untreated fruit to avoid adding the wax coating from many shop bought citrus.
4 small grapefruit (substitute if you’re not a fan)
4 medium oranges
10 teeny weeny but delicious mandarins (or equivalent)
5 lemons
4 limes
7 cups water
2kg sugar I know! sounds like a lot but each teaspoon of marmalade has only a fraction fo these & we need sweet, sour and astringent tastes in our diet - this one has all 3 in one spoonful
I use raw sugar - it gives the marmalade a slight toffee flavour but does make the colour darker
If you prefer a light golden colour, go half/half with white sugar
If you want to try even lower sugar then substitute 300g of the above with Jam setting sugar & cook on the rolling boil for an extra 10-15 mins
Makes 3-3.2 litres of marlmalade
Method
Prepare and sterilise enough jars for 3.5 litres of marmalade. Wash jars and lids in hot soapy water, remove any soap suds by rinsing and place galss jars in a pre-warmed oven at 150 deg for 20 mins, then turn heat down to 60-80 to keep warm whilst you make the marmalade.
Wash fruit and remove any blemishes
Cut into 8ths and remove any pips
Blitz in a food processor until you have small pieces of peel - you can make it as rough or smooth as you like but it’s nice to retain some peel for that real marmalade texture.
The purists amongst you will want to carefully slice thinly to get the shredded rind texture - go ahead if you have the time, but make sure you don’t lose any precious juice in the process.
Place the prepared fruit into a heavy bottomed pan with plenty of space
Add water & sugar, stirring to dissolve before placing on the heat
Continue to stir to completely dissolve sugar, steadily bringing it up to a rolling boil
Stir ocasionally on rolling boil for 70-80 mins
You want all the pith to be well enough cooked to be clear, but the marmalade will still be quite runny when ready to jar up. If you over cook it will go super sticky and toffee like once set - this can easily be remedied by adding boiling water to the jar once opened & stirring through carefully.
When a 1/2 tspn of marmalade placed on a cold saucer starts to wrinkle after 2 mins, you’re ready to jar up
Carefully pour into warm jars, leaving a wee gap at the top between the marmalade and lid
Seal with dry lids and leave to cool before labelling
Will keep for at least a year
