Grapefruit Marmalade

Are you a marmalade fan?  I am!  On our honeymoon, my husband and I went to The Bake Shop in Girdwood, Alaska, and they had the BEST marmalade I have ever had!  I have been trying to recreate it ever since

  This isn’t how I remember their marmalade was, but it was fun and easy to make!

Basically, the only ingredients in marmalade are citrus and sugar.  You cook the skins of the citrus and make it into a jam.  I have made kumquat marmalade and clementine marmalade before, but this was my first time making it with grapefruit!  The skin of the grapefruit can be bitter, so it is boiled to death (basically), before you slice it up.

This recipe is adapted from Nigella Lawson’s “How to be a Domestic Goddess”.  I added meyer lemons and limes to my marmalade to really change it up a bit.

Grapefruit Marmalade

Print this recipe!

4 large grapefruit

4 meyer lemons

4 limes

6-8 cups sugar (depending on your sweet tooth!)

Place the grapefruit in a large pot and cover with water.  Bring to a boil, and cook the grapefruit for 2 hours.  The grapefruit should be bobbing in the water.  I periodically rotated them so all the skin would cook, and added more water.

After the 2 hours are up, remove the grapefruit from the water, and let cool.

Cut off the stem end of the grapefruit and slice into thin slices.  They will be squishy, and that is ok.  Here is a hint — make sure you have a sharp knife!  This will make the slicing so much easier.  Remove any seeds as you see them.  Grapefruit have big seeds and little seeds!  Remove them all, because you do not want them in your final product!

Roughly cut into pieces.  They do not have to be uniform, and can be any size you want.  I cut them into 1/4 – 1/2 inch pieces.  Place into a large pot.

Continue and do the same thing with the limes and lemons – slice thinly, and then chop into pieces.

Add to the grapefruit in the pot.

Once all the citrus is chopped, add in the sugar, and bring to a boil over medium high heat.   I started with 5 cups sugar, and then added another cup.  You can add more or less depending on your sweet tooth!  I always have my husband taste test for me, because I know I like a little less sugar than the normal person!

Bring the mixture to a boil, and cook for 20-30 minutes, stirring constantly.  As it cooks, the mixture will thicken and turn a darker color.  If you don’t cook it long enough, you will have a marmalade syrup, and the juices won’t gel.  To test the gelling, take a spoonful of marmalade and place in the freezer for a few minutes.  This will show you what consistency the jam will be when it is cool.  You want it to thicken.  If it isn’t quite there, just cook another 5-10 minutes and test again.

You can either jar and refrigerate your jam, or can it!  I chose to can it in a water bath canner to preserve my marmalade!

I got 3 – 1/2 pints, and 3 – 1 pint jars of jam.  If you don’t want this much jam, just half the recipe.

I love marmalade, and I love how this turned out!  It is different from your normal marmalade with the 3 different types of fruit.  It is slightly bitter from the grapefruit, but I really like it!