Recently, a student gave me a small bag of Kumquats. I knew about these little citrus fruits from when I was a child as our family had a little tree, but I never really took to eating them. However, I really did want to learn how to make something of these ones... and for quite some time, I have been considering learning how to make jams and that sort of thing. So, I thought that it was a good time to learn how to make a marmalade out of these little critters. Plus, I had a day free, and what would be a better way to spend it than learning how to cook something new?

So... no personal credit for this recipe, I had found it on the internet at https://www.christinascucina.com/easy-kumquat-jam-recipe/. This is just a documenting of how I managed to follow through with it... but if you want the recipe, just jump on through to that original link.

So, first things first... preparation of the fruit. I didn't have lots and lots of the kumquats, but there was quite a lot of them to slice up. Definitely, a sharp knife is recommend... dull knives are much more dangerous than sharp ones when you are cooking!

At the start, I was pretty diligent and cut nice thin strips... but by the end, I was just cutting wider strips. It sort of gets boring after a while... and cutting thin strips is a bit too time consuming!

Boiling the kumquat strips in a little bit of orange juice (luckily, I had JUST juiced a whole bag of them so that we would have fresh orange juice for the week's breakfasts!) and some water. Boiling them up until they were soft... which took only a few minutes. A lovely smell to fill the kitchen!

Draining out the soft liquid rinds into a container, you needed to add in roughly a similar volume of sugar. A bit TOOOO much sugar if you ask me, so I did about three quarters instead. Even still... quite a LOT of sugar!

Then stirring the rind mix and sugar in on a higher heat, and letting it boil for about an hour... making sure to stir every now and then.

This was a perfect time to start getting the preserving jars ready. I had no idea how many of the jars I would need. I had twelve of them, but I suspected that I would need much less than that. In the end, I washed up six of them...

... then put them on a rack in a warm oven to sterilise and dry out.

Meanwhile, the marmalade mix had turned this nice golden colour... and it was time to test the thickness. The girls and I also had a little taster... and it was surprisingly decent!

The suggestion was to use a dish that had been in the freezer, and then put a little of the superhot mix onto the freezing dish surface, and then just push it with your finger... and if it wrinkled, then the mix was ready to take off the boil and to start putting into the jar.

Then getting the hot marmalade mix into the jars was a little bit tricky... next time I'm down in Sydney, I'm picking up a preserving/canning funnel from a kitchenware store. It is really odd, but I don't seem to be able to locate one in Canberra! Only online deliveries... and that really isn't worth it for a funnel that is about 15 dollars... the shipping would be more than that!

In the end, I filled almost two jars. The girls love it in the morning... weirdly enough, they don't normally like marmalade, but I think because they helped make this one... they keep eating it! I did stuff up the cooking/boiling a bit... the recipe had a timing that was for a much larger batch, and so my marmalade is a touch on the solid side! It doesn't spread... but is a bit more clumpy when you put it on toast or crumpets... but is still works! Plus, it is my first attempt.. I'll know better for next time!

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