making marmalade at home : microwave marmalade recipe : orange, lime and grapefruit marmalade ....

I made three jars of marmalade of different fruits. In three consecutive days using the same borosil bowl in the microwave and peeling and segmenting a new kind of citrus fruit each day. Limes and grapefruits from the garden and oranges from our weekly market. So much citrus fruits in the house means a few jars of marmalade as I love only this kind of fruit preserves from myself. No hard set pectin loaded preserves that loose the fruity aroma. Making the marmalade at home is fun . Watching them lined up on the kitchen counter is more fun for a few days.


I kept comparing the colours these different citrus fruits bring in their respective marmalades. I love the thin slivers of the peel always. The peels look so inviting embedded in amber like preserve in glass jars.

Now look at this one...



I loved it while making these beauties and I am loving it looking at the pictures now and writing about them . Just now we had the orange one smeared generously over two butter cookies and microwaved for 30 seconds ...the marmalade beautifully glazed over the cookie and felt like having an orange tart :)

Marmalade and other fruit preserves can easily be made in the microwave. See how.

If you are making a small quantity of the marmalade, it's as easy as making coffee a few times a day. The microwave makes it easy for you. Dunk in some segments of the citrus fruit with water and cook till soft. Add sugar and keep cooking for a couple of minutes whenever you go to the kitchen. The cooking mixture will bubble up and each time it will thicken a bit. Also,when you are away and the cooking syrup is cooling down, it is evaporating copiously making the marmalade thicker even when you are away and the MW is off. MWs make evaporation of water quicker and that helps us here.

Starting with the grapefruit, because this is the biggest fruit and the pictures of the segments and the membranes are clear to understand....

Separate the segments and the membranes and keep the membranes in a microwave safe mug. Boil the membranes and seeds with water and keep it aside. I did not use the grapefruit skin, with oranges and limes the skins are to be boiled with the membranes too. These parts have pectin and boiling lets the pectin extracted in the water.


 Now strain the liquids and add to the borosil or pyrex bowl . You would want to extract every last bit of pectin from the seeds and membranes mush so press it harder and use a muslin cloth if needed . Add the segments too and get started .


Microwaving for a couple of minutes will result into this...


Add sugar and keep microwaving this syrup for a couple of minutes every time you are in the kitchen, or till the time you are working on something else....multitasking.

The same sequence for the oranges and the limes...I quartered the oranges and the limes both lengthwise and then sliced them thinly....

Orange seeds and some skin and the membranes, as much as can be separated from the sliced fruit ..... to be boiled to extract pectin...


And the sliced oranges in the pectin extract ...


 The lime slices in the pectin extract ....


After cooking for a couple of times, 2 minutes every time, the syrup gets thicker...

Keep cooking the syrup till it thickens and a shiny glaze appears on it. Fill in sterilized jars as soon as the marmalade thickens.

I used 4 limes, 2 oranges and one grapefruit to make about a jar full of these three glistening amber beauties...

Included the skin of the lime and oranges but with grapefruits I was apprehensive of the skins as the skins are strongly bitter and very thick. They made very nice candied peels though...

You can see the thin strips of skin in the lime and orange marmalade but the crimson colored grapefruit marmalade doesn't have any skin in it, still the taste is quite awesome.

Making a grapefruit marmalade was my achievement as it was my first time with grapefruit marmalade. Lime and oranges of different types I had worked for making several jars of marmalade but that was on gas stove. In a microwave it was much more fun.


Now a recap of the quantities used. I used 4 limes and 1.5 cups of sugar for the lime marmalade. 2 oranges and a cup of sugar for the orange one and one whole grapefruit without skin and 1.5 cup of sugar for the grapefruit marmalade...

Also, i started with approximate quantities of sugar. The trick is, as you keep boiling or microwaving the syrup, it should get thick and should get frothy. At this stage if you see the frothy liquid is not getting shiny, add some more sugar and watch till it cooks, froths and becomes shiny. While cooling a bit it gets a wrinkled skin formed quickly. It is the time to bottle it. Do it fast and place the cap when the bottle is cool.

Easy ... Every day, for three days, I cooked a marmalade through the day. Microwaving for 2-3 minutes about ten times during the day and emptying the bowl in the evening. Next day another fruit was cut, peeled and cooked in the same bowl without washing, minimizing a lot of work....

I made them about 2 months ago and they were looking sad as I had kept them locked up for so long.

Now they look so happy ...all of them...



I am using them a lot too these days..


The lemon marmalade is being used for a few yummy stir fries too .....stay tuned for the recipes...


Comments

  1. Mouther-watering good pictures - Where is my TOAST :)- Lovely post ... thanks for sharing

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  2. Wow awesome ..lovely post and sure bookmarking it sangeetha. HAppy Valentines day !!!

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  3. wow amazing three different nice colourso attractive yummy marmalade try it soon

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  4. Gosh, I love the photographs!! Lovely, mouthwatering marmalade!

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  5. Looks great and sounds simple.I will try it

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  6. Colors are so pretty...I love marmalade but kiddos & hubby don't....last time when I made a bottle I only finished it.....may be I should give it one more try....kids tastebuds keep changing right....

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  7. Lovely photographs :)It would have been difficult enough to resit trying these but now your tip of preparing small quantities at a time and use the microwave for cooking... it does sound easy and quick enough to risk :)

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  8. These pictures look so tempting, feel like dipping my finger in the jar & licking it :).

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  9. It's finger licking good ;-)

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  10. I adore marmalade! One of my favorite chicken dishes uses orange marmalade. This is a must try. Love the microwave idea too.

    Kristi

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  11. Pretty colors! I love marmalade. My best companion during the pregnancy nausea. Yours look lovely. I made a similar Indian version (actually my grandmom's recipe)

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  12. Wow, marmalade in the microwave, now that is something else! Good going.

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  13. Not sure about making it BUT I sure would love to get hold of a few jars of this and eat them they look so yummmy

    Bikram's

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  14. I tried making this with strawberries. It came out good but bit sugary. Thanks for recipe...

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  15. Thanks everybody....

    @ Vasudha ... with starwberries or any fruit , jams can be made in the microwave very easily.... i do it all the time ...making small quantities of different jams. With orange marmalade the only difference is that the pectin has to be extracted and added to the cooking mixture n that's why it takes more sugar than any other jam...so when making jam with other fruits lesser sugar will be required.

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  16. Sangeeta, So we need to cut thin strips of orange peel? The peel can be used whole na. And use the flesh inside like you said. And seeds and white skin over the flesh for the pectin extract. This seems much easier than I thought. I will try it for sure.

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    1. Yes Rachna. The marmalade is very easy to make. Try once and you would see how easy.

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  17. Sangeeta I am confused. Don't we need to add pectin while making Jams. I get lots of home grown organic pomelos. They have lots of seeds. Can I store them for making pectin in future. Other wise they land up in my compost and I end up with lots of pomelo saplings. can you please tell how to make candied peels. It would help me a lot as I am big fan of plum cake.

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