Meyer Lemon Marmalade

One afternoon last week Jake came home with some treats for me: a bunch of peonies and a bag full of Meyer lemons. Sweet! Yep, the man certainly knows the way to my heart: flowers and food.

I promised to make him his favorite lemon curd, but wanted to try something new as well. So, I started with this Lemon Marmalade recipe from BBC's Good Food.

Ingredients

• 10 organic Meyer lemons
• 8 C water
• 3 C organic granulated sugar
• 4 whole cardamom pods

Procedure

Wash the lemons and place them in a large stock pot covered with 8 C of water. 

Bring to the boil, then cover the pan and simmer for 2½ hrs or until the lemon skins are tender and can be pierced easily with a toothpick.

When the lemons are cool enough to handle (I let mine steep overnight), remove from the saucepan. 

Halve the lemons and remove the seeds – reserving the seeds and any juice that comes out during the process. Cut the lemon peel and flesh into thin strips. Put all of this, including any juices, back into the pan. 

Put the seeds and the cardamom pods in a small muslin bag. Add this to the pan.

Place 3 C of liquid, making the difference up with water if you don't have that much left from the cooking process, and 3 C of sugar to the pot along with the lemon pulp and rinds. Bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar has completely dissolved. Boil rapidly for about 30 mins until the setting point is reached. Test by running your spoon through the mixture. If a path remains - i.e., the marmalade doesn't immediately run back together - it's ready.

Leave to cool for 10 minutes. Spoon jam into warm, sterilized jars and seal straight away. You can water process the jars for 5 minutes or leave them unsealed and store in the fridge.

I'll be using this as part of a glaze next month...and slathering it on toast till then. It's potent, so you don't need very much.