3 Marmalades

I have been making marmalade with various degrees of success for about 13 years. My recipes have been guessed, written by friends on napkins and interpreted to achieve flavors reminiscent of my Grandmothers fabled "Fairacres Three Fruit Marmalade". Her marmalade was made with mineola oranges, grapefruits and lemons grown in her garden in Natal, South Africa. My Grandfather liked a darker marmalade, so she cooked it until the sugars started to caramelize, giving her marmalade a hint of caramel along with the bitter citrus flavors. My canning/ jamming/ marmalade making has been a bit hit and miss, until I recently conscripted the help of Rachel Saunders and her "The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook" (http://bluechairfruit.com/blue-chair-jam-cookbook/). Her recipes are useful, but what has been the most helpful is her explanation of what happens when sugars and fruit turn to jam and what these changes look like. Thanks to her I was recently able to make a batch of plum jam on the fly, without scale, recipe book or proper canning equipment simply because a tree dripping with plums begged for it.

On to the Marmalade part - 3 jars of Rangpur Lime marmalade are in the attached photo - each tells a different story. On the left is the most recent, on the right the oldest, from last winter. The greenish hue in the right hand one, is due to the fact that we still thought we had to pick the limes when green, it is a super tart marmalade, made pre-Rachael Saunders and after not having made marmalade for a few years. It is densely fruity, but without all the jammy stickiness we love around here. The middle jar is my first with-Rachel's-help batch from earlier this winter. It cooked a little too long due to the child emergency mentioned in a previous post, but it did gain that caramel touch that I love. The left hand, 2/3 full jar is my most recent attempt, where I tried to stick very close to Rachel's instructions. What amazes me always is how much fruit goes in to 1 jar. I used about 25 limes, which cooked down into 2/3s of  a jar of limey goodness. Quite an amazing thing to spread on a slice of hot, buttered toast with a wedge of sharp cheddar on top.