Monday 30 January 2012

Meyer Lemon + Vanilla Bean Marmalade

I FINALLY found a grocery store that sells Meyer Lemons! Meyer Lemons have been some kind of unattainable mysterious citrus in my mind for some time now. I kept seeing all sorts of delicious recipes that use Meyer Lemons - cakes, tarts, jams, muffins, and things filled with curd. All the recipes say you can use regular lemons and just add more sugar, but I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. It seems they are a pretty common thing in the USA, but in Canada they continued to elude me.
Then one day I was walking through a small local farm market and what did I spy out of the corner of my eye? Bags of Meyer Lemons! I literally jumped up and down squealing and clapping my hands. I went right ahead and bought 3 bags. So many recipes to choose from! I did can some lemon curd and make a delicious coffee cake, but my favorite is this marmalade! It's so sunny and pretty, and the sweet/tart quality of the lemons compliments the vanilla bean surprisingly well!

I found the recipe on a blog called Food Gal. I ended up using a LOT more sugar than the recipe called for - I have no idea why but it just wouldn't set. Just a heads up there - don't be afraid to add more sugar if you think you've been waiting too long.

Here you see a picture of my canning set-up. This is the part where I give you advice from experience: just buy the gigantic canning pot with the wire rack insert. It's not worth the worrying, hovering over the stove the whole time just waiting for that Dutch Oven to overflow or the jars to bump together and crack. It worked this time (even though some of the jars were never completely covered in water!) but next time I may not be so lucky...




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