Minneola Marmalade
Minneola tangelos are the sweeter, juicier cousins of the grapefruit and the tangerine. I can't remember having ever bought them before, and yet all of a sudden, one September they were everywhere in their deep orange splendour. What it was about the bag of minneolas I came home with that made me think 'marmalade' I still can’t say, but something did, and here it is. Sweeter than traditional orange marmalade, with none of its bitterness. An easy sell, if you ask me.
Ingredients (enough for 3 US cups, or two 340mL jam jars and a little extra):
2 cups minneola juice (4 or 5 minneolas should be enough)
rind of 4 mineolas
2 cups sugar
1.5 cups water
* Equipment: a candy thermometer
Instructions:
1. Juice the minneolas and pour the juice into a saucepan.
2. Using a sharp knife, cut the orange outside rind off of the remaining minneola peels, discarding the white pith. This is important - the more of the white pith you put into your marmalade, the more bitter it will become.
3. Take the rind and cut it into thin strips, then roughly chop the strips into chunks.
4. Add the rind, sugar and water to the saucepan along with the juice and bring to a boil. Now, the boiling part is going to take a while (at least 20 minutes for the quantities in this recipe, although the timing will vary a little with the height of your heat source).
5. In the meantime, sterilize your jam jars. You can do this by taking the jars you want to use, removing the lids, and washing both lids and jars with soapy water. Rinse and put the jars and lids (not closed) into a big pot of cold water. Slowly bring the water to a boil, and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.
6. Remove the marmalade from heat at 105 degrees Celsius (222 degrees Fahrenheit). You want to keep your eye on the ball at this point - if you let the mixture get much hotter than this, it will become too thick.
Tip: when using a candy thermometer, make sure that the bottom of the thermometer isn't touching the bottom of the saucepan or it will look like your marmalade is warmer than it actually is. Becuase the tip of the thermometer should be submerged fully in the marmalade, you may have to tilt your pan a little to measure it properly.
7. Remove the jars from the pot of hot water and pour the marmalade into the hot, sterilized jars.
* NB: NEVER pour hot marmalade into cold jars, or cold marmalade into hot jars!
8. To seal the jars and prevent the formation of mold, you can sterilize them quickly by putting them back into the pan of hot water (this time with their lids on) and bringing it back to a boil for a few minutes. Then remove.
Curious how this works? A bit of chemistry explains it all. Water, as you know, boils at 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit). Because melted sugar can reach much higher temperatures than water, as some of the water molecules evaporate the mixture will slowly get hotter. The heat it reaches determines the form the substance will take when it cools down. The process is essentially the same as that used to make caramel (or other types of candy), except that caramel requires an even higher temperature (160 degrees Celsius/320 degrees Fahrenheit and up).
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| Homemade minneola marmalade |
2 cups minneola juice (4 or 5 minneolas should be enough)
rind of 4 mineolas
2 cups sugar
1.5 cups water
* Equipment: a candy thermometer
Instructions:
1. Juice the minneolas and pour the juice into a saucepan.
2. Using a sharp knife, cut the orange outside rind off of the remaining minneola peels, discarding the white pith. This is important - the more of the white pith you put into your marmalade, the more bitter it will become.
3. Take the rind and cut it into thin strips, then roughly chop the strips into chunks.
4. Add the rind, sugar and water to the saucepan along with the juice and bring to a boil. Now, the boiling part is going to take a while (at least 20 minutes for the quantities in this recipe, although the timing will vary a little with the height of your heat source).
5. In the meantime, sterilize your jam jars. You can do this by taking the jars you want to use, removing the lids, and washing both lids and jars with soapy water. Rinse and put the jars and lids (not closed) into a big pot of cold water. Slowly bring the water to a boil, and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.
6. Remove the marmalade from heat at 105 degrees Celsius (222 degrees Fahrenheit). You want to keep your eye on the ball at this point - if you let the mixture get much hotter than this, it will become too thick.
Tip: when using a candy thermometer, make sure that the bottom of the thermometer isn't touching the bottom of the saucepan or it will look like your marmalade is warmer than it actually is. Becuase the tip of the thermometer should be submerged fully in the marmalade, you may have to tilt your pan a little to measure it properly.
7. Remove the jars from the pot of hot water and pour the marmalade into the hot, sterilized jars.
* NB: NEVER pour hot marmalade into cold jars, or cold marmalade into hot jars!
8. To seal the jars and prevent the formation of mold, you can sterilize them quickly by putting them back into the pan of hot water (this time with their lids on) and bringing it back to a boil for a few minutes. Then remove.
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