This story starts with the box in the above photo that Stacy received via UPS on her birthday, Thursday, the 17th, from our daughter Sandy, and about a marmalade that Sandy had liked that was available near her home from "Frog Hollow Farm".
Last Saturday the 19th, Stacy decided to take on the challenge of creating it and I would photograph and be the helper and taster.
To be honest though, when Sandy had said it was the 'best she'd tasted' we were expecting a box with some pre-made marmalade and not a marmalade kit. And lemon marmalade to boot! It looks to be quite the challenge to make lemon into a sweet and tasty marmalade
In the box were two smaller boxes, the top one had some packed like eggs lemons, a bag of sugar, three little jars for the finished product and some directions and advertisements for the place. As the packed directions were somewhat simplistic and a little vague, Stacy looked online and found some slightly more detailed directions. So between the two we figured we could figure it out. The bottom box had a large glossy kind of bible book of how to can and preserve things.
Below, the first thing to do was Stacy prepping the dozen lemons, and these little guys were supposed to be a "sweeter" variety of lemon????????????
Prepping meant washing, drying, cutting the ends off and making them be able to me sliced and kinda mulched in our little food processor. Below, here Stacy was quartering them after loping off the ends to start.
After they were quartered above, they all wound up going into our small travel food processor below. The photo below was taken early on with just a few wedges being done so far.
Below, after all were sliced this was what 12 small lemons looked like before they were cooked. The official recipe calls for leaving the peels on. We couldn't find info on the seeds though so at this point most were still in the sections. We later took all the seeds we could get out, just in case, so no broken teeth!
To be honest, we were highly skeptical of the ability of this recipe (or any recipe!) to make very strong lemons of any size be good and sweet enough to eat, so Stacy had gotten a couple of large oranges and thought she'd also try to make a small batch of orange marmalade too, to see the difference as we aren't even much at eating marmalade ourselves.
So, in the photo below, Stacy had skinned the oranges and was slicing the halves up.
After cooking a bit we decided to err on the side of safe and took out the seeds.
Below, Stacy is working on that seed removal. This was one of the points not addressed in any of the recipes, seeds in, or seeds out? So we opted for out as although these were smaller than average lemons, they had some big seeds in them!
After cooking as shown above, it was time to add the pre measured and included bag of sugar, which Stacy had just done below. And I told her to HOLD IT!, so I could get a photo before all the sugar had gotten absorbed in the mix. So still visible are the last islands of sugar in the sea of lemon parts.
All cooked and getting served out into the hot glass containers that had been (per the instructions) heated in the oven at 200 degrees below. Their included lids were also pre heated in hot water to soften up the layer of sealing material to make them an air tight and safe seal as they cool.
Below, a container we had on hand at home was used for the one container of orange marmalade.
All done. Stacy's DIY marmalade kit all finished and cooling in the pan below. Per the instructions, the lids are on them and they get placed lid down for the first little while until cool enough to handle then they got placed top up again, the containers cleaned off and finished cooling in the fridge later that day.
The results?
To be honest, I guess if you really, really, love lemon flavor, it's a good recipe. Even 'built' as the directions said, the lemon marmalade was only very slightly sweet and more overpoweringly lemon tart
And the test orange marmalade? Very good!
I told Stacy we'll need to try them both on something instead of stand alone to see if the lemon gets more edible and see if the orange improves on its taste. So for now they're ageing a bit and we'll try them again, maybe next weekend?
It is the thought that counts though, and Stacy and I, well, while we don't love lemon (for me it's lemon in tea only!), Stacy took on the challenge to see what could be done as she's never made marmalade before this. And it turned out marmalade is just another thing of the many Stacy can make!
The included book though, that had lots of ideas in it!
So thanks Sandy!
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