This is the mandarin marmalade recipe we cook together in a Jacican citrus preserving class.

You have heard me talk before about my tree change, and when we arrived, there were only three fruit trees on the property. 

This gave us a blank garden canvas to work with, allowing us to design and plant what we wanted to grow, cook, and eat. 

Over the last 17 years, the garden has evolved from having no citrus trees to featuring four different lemons, cumquats, limes, oranges, a few citrus hybrids and mandarins. 

Mandarins are one of the few fruits BM will eat, unabated, so two trees, an imperial and an emperor, were planted early on.

Both crop abundantly each year, providing us with fresh fruit to snack on for up to six months, with plenty for mandarin marmalade. 

Mandarin Marmalade Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 kg of mandarins
• 2 litres of water
• 2 kgs of sugar

Method

1. Wash your mandarins, then cut or pull off the stalks.

It is likely that if you are using store-bought mandarins, someone else has already removed the stalks for you.

2. Roughly chop the mandarins so that the pieces fit more easily into your food processor. Place in the bowl of your food processor.  

3. Process until mandarins are roughly chopped, but still have a few larger pieces. This should take approximately one minute to process. 

4. Place the chopped mandarins in a large non-corrosive container. Here, we use rectangular plastic boxes with lids. 

5. Cover the mandarins with 2 litres of water. Put the lid on and place them in the fridge overnight. 

By covering the mandarins with water and leaving them to soak overnight, you accomplish two things: drawing the pectin out of the fruit and softening it for a faster cooking time. 

6. The next day, place the mandarin and water in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Once the mixture has boiled, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the fruit has become translucent.

7. Add the sugar. Return to a boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Once the marmalade is boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the setting point is reached. This will take up to 2 hours. 

8. Bottle. 

This recipe makes 9 * 250ml jars of mandarin marmalade. 

Mandarin marmalade pairs perfectly with toast, as a glaze for ham, or you could steam it in a steamed pudding. 

If you would like to learn to cook mandarin marmalade, come along to a Jacican - citrus preserving class.

Together we will cook marmalade using three different recipes and three different types of citrus  - Lemons, mandarins and grapefruit - along with other citrus preserves.

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