Lemon and ginger marmalade

I've been canning a few things since I discovered how to process the jars in hot water baths. This is the project I've been doing during weeknights recently: marmelade. I'm not a big fan of it, because I find most marmelades bitter and too zesty for me. Maybe this is the one that'll change my mind ! I finally kicked my butt into processing the lemons before they went bad and I'm so glad I did. I was awarded with fourteen 250ml jars of the stuff. Actually, I even had 15, butt the last jar's bottom actually broke, and the marmelade was lost into the 7 liters of boiling water.

Had no particular problem assembling everything together. The recipe is quite straight forward. The longest part is to zest the lemons (I highly recommand using a microplane if you have one ! I'll get one myself soon... there's no way I'll do again 14 lemons with a hand zester, and I made sure Guyuk understood that !), removing the seeds and the membranes. The cooking afterwards is speedy, only long step is to whisk all that sugar in before the final boil. It does mentions to whisk in the sugar while brigning to a boil, but I was so good at scalding myself with hot boiling citrus and sugar that I prefered to mix off the heat, then bring to a boil. I finished by canning all the jars, except the one which broke and this little guy there.

For people wondering, yes, I doubled this recipe, and the texture came out fine. I did use a bit more pectin than specified (2oz packages) however, so it might have helped, althought I also used the max number of lemons they were suggesting (used 16, versus 12 for the minimalist version). I thought it tasted fine, and I hope the taste remains the same even after it's chilled.

Lemon and ginger marmalade

From Fine Cooking

Ingredients

1-1/2 to 2 lb. lemons (6 to 8 medium)

1/2 cup finely chopped fresh ginger
One 1-3/4 -oz. package powdered pectin (I used 2oz packages)
6-1/2 cups granulated sugar

How to

Zest the lemons, avoiding as much of the white pith as possible. You’ll need 1 cup of zest strips. Put the zest in a 4-quart (or larger) saucepan.

Trim the ends from the zested lemons to expose the flesh. With one cut side down on the cutting board, trim the pith off the lemon all the way around and discard the pith. Supreme the lemons and remove the seeds.

Add the sliced lemons, ginger, and 2 cups water to the lemon zest. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, adjust the heat to maintain a simmer, and cook until the zest is soft and the membranes start to break down, 6 to 8 minutes.

Whisk the pectin into the mixture. Increase the heat to high, add the sugar, and bring to a boil, whisking constantly to smooth lumps. Boil vigorously for 1 minute, whisking constantly (move the pan off the burner momentarily if it threatens to boil over). Remove the pan from the heat and let sit undisturbed for 5 minutes.

Skim any foam and seeds off the surface of the marmalade. Stir gently to redistribute the solids. Transfer the marmalade to heatproof storage containers, let cool to room temperature, and then refrigerate for up to 1 month.

For longer storage at room temperature, can the marmalade.