Grapefruit Marmalade

For those who love the bittersweet tang of marmalade on their buttery toast, do i have a recipe for you! Grapefruit is a bitter fruit by mature, and makes a delicious honey/amber coloured marmalade. I picked mine from a tree overhanging a friends garden, they were very ripe and juicy with a thick pith.

8 grapefuit

1.5 kg sugar

water

juice of one lemon

1. After thorough washing, peel the skin leaving the pith and shred finely, place peel in a large non reactive bowl

2. remove pith and seeds from grapefruits and keep in a jelly bag (or a very old, clean, pillow slip kept for this purpose)

3. slice fruit as finely as you can muster after all of that chopping

4. Add the fruit to the bowl with the shredded peel and cover with water. Place the jelly bag containing seeds and pith in the water also (you will

remover this later - it just helps it to set)

5. leave overnight to soak

6. the following day, remove the jelly bag and pour your mixture into a large pot to cook. Allow to boil until the peel is so soft that you can easily squash it with the back of a spoon.

7. Take off the heat and add sugar. Stir to dissolve and taste... is it too bitter? if so, add more!

8. Add lemon juice, and boil the mixture very hard (be careful, it will bubble and froth quite high!) until it gels

9. bottle and seal in sterilised jars.

Lemon Butter!

Lemon Butter has to be one of the easiest, cheapest and most delicious spreads to make at home. Don't believe what they say about double boilers!!

Recipe (adapted

from Stephanie Alexander - the Cooks Companion)

60 g butter

2/3 cup sugar (castor if you have it)

juice of 2 lemons

4 egg yolks (i used small eggs from the farmers market)

zest of 1/2 a lemon

1. Whisk the eggs yolks and sugar together. They should make a pale creamy emulsion.

2. add a little lemon juice and whisk again to dissolve any pesky sugar crystals

3. pour into a heavy based saucepan, add the rest of the juice (always taste as you go!*), zest and butter and cook, stirring over a medium heat.

4. remove from the heat once the lemon butter coats the spoon, but keep stirring until you pour into a sterilised jar

this whole process took me about 10 minutes, and make one glorious jar of primrose coloured lemony goodness.

* my lemons were super juicy and large, so i used about 1.5 lemons worth of juice. Taste it - if it is not lemony enough add a bit more, but remember you cant take the lemon back!

mandarin marmalade

Its delicious! and the rinds turn out very soft and unctuous. the recipe i have used comes from Sue Ruchels book - 'windfalls' with a few differences of my own. It seems like a long process, but if you soak your mandarins and shred the rind overnight it is all finished and bottled the next day, with a definite sense of achievement

Delicious Mandarin Shred Marmalade

1kg mandarins
2 lemons
water
sugar

The day before peel the mandarins and slice the peel very finely. Place the shredded peel ina muslin bag and reserve. Wash and roughly chop the lemons and segment the mandarins and place in a large non reactive bowl and cover with water. Put the peel in with the fruit and leave overnight.

The next day boil all of the fruit and water and peel until the fruit is soft and the liquid reduced by about half. remover the peel after the first 20 minutes. Pour all the fruit through a jelly bag and leave to drip for as
long as you have patience for - you can squeeze the bag if you dont mind a cloudy marmalade - i squeezed mine :) and discard the pulp.

In a large non reactive pot add the sugar to the juice in the ratio of one cup of
sugar to one cup of juice - a little less if you like it a little less sweet- and stir to dissolve over low heat. Boil the mixture hard until setting test is reached. Take off the heat, allow to stand and add the peel. stir and bottle while hot. Invert the bottles to create a seal and voila!

delicious marmalade to share with family and friends