Ruby-Red Grapefruit Marmalade by Caitlin
Adapted from The Complete Book of Small- Batch Preserving, over 300 delicious recipes to use year-round by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard
3 pink grapefruit
2 lemons
3 cups water
3 ½ cups white sugar
Place two or three small plates in the freezer, you will use them later when determining if the marmalade has gelled and is ready to be canned.
Remove thin outer rind from grapefruit and lemons with a zester. Place rind in a large stainless steel or enamel saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Then cover, reduce, and boil gently for 20 minutes.
Remove and discard remaining white rind and seeds from the fruit. I roughly cut the skin off the zested fruit, first from ends and then the sides, not worrying if some of the pulp came off as well.
Add sugar to fruit. Return to a boil over high heat and boil rapidly, uncovered until mixture forms a gel*, about 30 minutes, stirring frequently. The marmalade will get darker and foamy as it boils.
*I use the freezer test to determine if a gel has formed. Take the small plate you put in the freezer and put a spoon of the hot marmalade on one chilled plate. If the mixture if sufficiently when you draw your finger or a spoon through the hot spread it will not reform, the line through will stay. Obviously, this is kind of subjective!
Remove from heat. Ladle into sterilized jars and process for 10 minutes. When removing jars from the canner, place on a clean folded tea-towel and wait until you hear a 'pop' indicating it's sealed before moving and storing them. Depending on what elevation your city is at, you may have to add processing time to your recipe. This is because at higher altitudes water boils at a lower temperature. Eg between 1000-3000 feet add 5 minutes processing time: Edmonton at 2373 feet add an extra 5 minutes processing time, Calgary at 3357 feet add 10 minutes for 20 minutes total. Montreal at 270 feet doesn’t need to add anytime! I looked up these elevations on the Bernadin home canning site FAQ section.
Makes 4 ½ cups. (Well not for me, a lot of my marmalade evaporated away, this made a smaller amount for me!)