my friends that don't like marmalade, who've tried my kumquat marmalade,
are surprised and actually like it or at least that's what they tell me, i think they do
hi guys i'm Elissa at Moat Cottage Homesteading, today i'm making Kumquat Marmalade.
Kumquat trees are small compact citrus trees that are fairly cold
hardy and handle the mid 40C degree heat waves pretty well and they produce a lot of fruit.
I grew this tree in a pot for about 5 to 10 years, I can't really remember how long it was before
planting it into the ground a few years ago and it always produced plenty of fruit. The good thing
about kumquats is the fruit can stay on the tree for many months, so you can pick throughout that
time you can also pick the fruit and freeze it by washing it and putting it in sealed containers
to our heavy duty saucepan add in your lemon juice to the water,
slice up your kumquats removing any pips that just happen to fall out.
You don't have to remove them all because they go soft and you can eat them, but if any fall out,
I like to remove them just to reduce the amount of seeds that are in the marmalade
place the fruit into the saucepan as well and then bring it to the boil boil gently for five minutes
and then remove from the heat covering and let it stand in the refrigerator for up to 18 hours
measure your fruit and liquid together in cups, into a larger saucepan so that you know how many
cups of sugar you will need to add because the ratio is one cup of fruit mixture to one cup of
sugar. It's really important when you're making marmalade or jams to really have everything
prepared because once it's made, it's going to be starting to set if you don't get everything
happening very quickly, so get organized first and then it won't be too much of a drama
and i'm setting up for canning because we're going to be water bath canning this kumquat marmalade.
In the bowls at the front i've got a little bowl of vinegar which is just white vinegar
to wipe down the rims of the jars, some lids sitting in some warm water and the rings
i've got nine sterilized half pint jars here and i'm just going to check them for nicks
out of the rim because if there's nicks out of the rim obviously the lid is not going
to seal properly and i'll check for cracks as well because i don't want any breakages
in my canner because that will be a waste of beautiful marmalade and a big mess to clean up
i've got a funnel to fit the jars,
my tool for checking the headspace as well as getting any air bubbles out
and my magnet tool for removing the lids out of the warm water,
i've also got my jars on a tea towel because the jars are going to get hot once i fill them up and
it'll damage the table underneath if i don't have something under the jars, also it's going
to be really messy and it's easier to remove a tea towel and throw it in the wash than to
be trying to get it all off the table, just in my opinion that's how i like to do things, it's
up to you how you do it. I also have a clean tea towel to dip into the vinegar, to wipe the jar.
So i think i'm pretty set here. Over this side i've got my marmalade mixture and some
sugar because i'm going to need to add in all my sugar, I have my water bath canner set up over
at the stovetop, i'll add in enough warm water to cover the jars, i put my tray in the bottom
so that the jars don't break when they're being canned and i have my jar remover and my stirring
spoon for when i'm making the jam. I've got 18 cups of the marmalade mixture so i'm going to
be adding in 18 cups of white sugar which is a lot of sugar but i'm making a double batch
so the recipe is in the description below and it will be for half the amount of this
which should fill nine half pint jars
now it's ready to go on the stove top and i've got this wooden chopping board here so
that when i bring it back and it's hot it can sit on that and protect the table, let's go
on a medium heat, stir until the sugar dissolves then bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat,
this takes time so you need to be patient, you need to not leave
your marmalade, you need to be stirring the whole time, you need to not have children under
your feet because the marmalade is going to get up to about 220 degrees fahrenheit
and you also don't want pets that you're going to trip over either, especially if you're moving the
jam around once it's ready. Now once it's boiling we want it to get up to almost the gelling point,
so that's 220 degrees fahrenheit so continue to stir consistently
and once it gets there remove from the heat if you want to skim off the foam you can do that,
i never worry about that or you can add a dollop of butter if you don't want the foam,
i don't do either of those things. Turn it off the heat, place the lid on if you're going to
be moving it because you don't want to be moving it if it's, you don't want to spill or splash or
anything like that, it's for safety because it's like burning lava. I get my canner straight on
now, on low so it can warm up while i'm setting up and putting all my marmalade into the jars.
Carefully ladle the hot mixture into the jars leaving quarter of an inch of headspace
and try not to get any of the liquid on you because it's burning hot
using your de-bubbler tool or you can use a flat knife remove your air bubbles
this is a measuring tool this is how you can measure how much head space you have in your jar.
If you place it on the first run, which is this one here, you can see that it's
just touching the top of the marmalade there and that's one quarter of an inch headspace.
If you wanted half an inch headspace, you'd place it on that run, three quarters and a whole inch.
It's a it's a really handy and valuable tool when you're canning,
especially if you're using the ball mason jars and the flat lids because if you get the right
headspace that helps for the lids to seal properly and you get less siphoning and all the different
things that can go wrong if you don't have the right amount of head space and we want the lids
to seal properly so it's worth the effort making sure you get it as close to perfect as you can
add or remove jam to get it right. Next up we want to clean the rims of the jars and how we do
that is we use the clean tea towel dip it into the white vinegar and then just wipe any extra syrupy
sugary marmalade mess off the top of the rim and the thread as well
and then use a clean part of your tea towel to just
wipe around as well, now be very careful because the jars are super hot
and you may need to use part of the tea towel to help turn the jar so that you don't burn yourself
try not to dip the tea towel into the marmalade
right, next up we get a canning lid, place it on the top, center it and with a ring
screw it on so it's finger tight, not
you don't need to grab it and tighten it up, just so that it's finger tight
center the lid, place your ring on
and finger tight
take your jars over to the canner, i've got the water in the canner warming up,
i don't have a rack so once it starts to boil i place my jars carefully into the canner
one at a time
you want to have at least one inch headspace over the jars. I have a little bit more than
that because i'm using, i'm actually using my pressure canner and i'm not going to put the
dial gauge in so it's going to have a hole in the middle, so it's not going to be a sealed unit,
so once all my jars are in, i have about an inch and a half headspace because it will lose some
steam while i'm canning. Now that'll come back up to the boil i'll be able to see that it comes
up to the boil because it'll start shooting steam out, which it is, you can see that there
now. I'm going to process the half pint jars for 10 minutes.
Once the 10 minutes is up, i'm going to turn off the heat, carefully remove the
cover away from myself, letting it drip the hot water into the canner and then put it
somewhere where it's not going to burn or melt anything. Let the jars cool for five minutes
and then remove the jars from the canner, don't re-tighten the bands if they're loose or touch
them, just leave them. Place your hot jars onto a wooden board so that it doesn't damage your table
and i also have a tea towel on top of the wooden board so that there's not a shock from
hot to cold, although it is 40 degrees celsius here today, not the best day to be making jam,
but there won't be much shock due to temperature differentiation. All my jars have sealed
all the lids are sucked in nicely and after 12 hours you can remove the rings,
wash your jars and label them and pop them away on the shelf or in your
cupboard. If you've got more kumquats, then check out my kumquat brandy video
thanks for watching, i'll see you in the next video