Having immersed myself in the world of marmalade over the last month, it’s definitely something I’m adding to my preserving repertoire. However, I am really grateful to be moving on canning/pickling projects that require less knife-work, as I don’t think my right hand could handle any further citrus chopping. This batch of Honey Lemon Marmalade required 14 lemons, which took nearly an hour to break down (and I seriously recommend that you make sure you don’t have any paper cuts prior to embarking upon this recipe). However, the work was worth it because this is one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten.
Back in January, I was obsessed with drinking infusions of honey, lemon juice and ginger. It was great way to fend off the winter chills and felt fairly virtuous to boot. While this marmalade doesn’t have any ginger in it, it evokes those infusions, and makes me want to stir spoonfuls into hot tea (I haven’t done it yet, but I may not be able to resist the urge).
This is the first time I’ve used honey as a sweetener in a canning project, and I think it worked pretty well. It wasn’t the sole sweetener, I also used some evaporated cane sugar (not because I was trying to be healthier, I was simply of out regular sugar). I wanted the flavor of the buckwheat honey (darker and slightly richer than regular wildflower honey), but because it’s such a deep taste, I was afraid that it would overwhelm the delicacy of the lemon.
The other thing I did differently with this batch of marmalade is that I used a full dose of pectin. In past batches, I used a single 3 ounce pack of pectin. This time around I used a full 6 ounces, which really firmed things up. I also lengthened the cooking time, in the hopes of drawing out more of the natural pectin.
As always, I have a half pint of this marmalade that could potentially have your name on it. Leave a comment if you want in on the giveaway, I’ll pick a winner by Saturday at 5 pm. Thanks to all who entered, the contest in closed.
Honey Lemon Marmalade
Ingredients
- 8 cups chopped lemons 14 lemons
- 2 cups honey I used buckwheat honey, but you can use whatever you’ve got
- 4 cups cane sugar
- 1 1/2 cups water
- 2 packets liquid pectin 6 ounces
Instructions
- Sterilize your jars (I used a combination of pint and half pint jars).
- Combine lemons, honey, sugar and water together in non-reactive pot. Bring to a boil, reduce temperature and let simmer for 30 minutes.
- Add pectin to the fruit and let it gently boil for 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat and fill jars. Apply lids and rings and process in a water bath for ten minutes. Let the marmalade sit overnight, to give the pectin time to fully activate.
Wow!! This is a wonderful recipe. Absolutely delicious. I made it with 1 1/2 cups Clementines and 6 1/2 cups thinly sliced Meyer lemons, and used juice instead of water. I make lots of marmalade every year and this is .Y all time favorite
That sounds like a delicious variation! Thanks for sharing your version!
About how many pint and half pint jars did this recipe make? Is it possible to do a half batch – 4 cups lemons, 3 ounces of pectin, etc?
This recipe made approximately 6 pints, so you’d get around 3 pints if you do a half batch.
Made this yesterday! Yes, a little bitter but that’s a marmalade characteristic. I used the 4 1/2 lbs of homegrown California Meyer lemons in the recipe book which made 12-8oz jars (more than listed in the recipe). I should have read the blog about using some liquid pectin. At the very end I worried the set was not firm enough so I added 3oz low sugar pectin mixed in 1/2 c additional sugar and cooked for an additional 5 min or so. The texture turned out nice and firm.. For dessert last night I heated some up and poured it over a slice of NY cheesecake. Yummy!
I’m so glad that you found a way to make it work for you!
Marisa, it looks perfect and tasty! Can’t wait to have this anytime of the day, love it!
I tried this today….the marmalade is definitely too tart unless you like it that way. However, dissolved in some hot water and it becomes a nice lemony tea.
I know I’m late to the party, but I made this today, and this is what I think:
I love anything lemon, and this marmalade certainly is lemony-too tart for anyone in the house but me.
The honey taste shines through the lemon nicely, wonderful contrast.
The next time I have a cold this is going into a shot of whiskey!
P.S. I used my food processor with the 4mm blade-sliced those lemons in ten minutes.
Just made this and it’s delicious!
I just completed this recipe. It is so bitter. Knowing that I did not want it to be to bitter, I pealed the peal off and scraped off the pith to half of the meyer lemons. It set beautifully. Can I redo this batch and add more sugar and reprocess?
Marmalades are meant to be bitter.
Hi, I’m just making your marmalade and the kitchen smells lovely. How long will this last please? Should I water can it for increased longevity, if so for how long should I can it and how much longer do you think it would give. Thanks for your lovely recipes. Viv
Hello! I will be making some jellies for a food shelter benefit that will be held in a bar in the next week or so. Have you ever made this with bourbon to replace 1/2 cup or more of water? I’m really interested in trying to create a “bar theme” with the jellies for this event. The shelter focuses on brown bag meals for students in the inner city during the weekend and always have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!
I’ve never done anything quite like that. I will say that if when you add liquor to jams, it’s best to do it at the end of cooking, so that you don’t cook away all their flavor.
I made a batch today and the liquid in the jars seems to be a lot. Do you think it will firm up ??
Preserves do often thicken up over time. Put one of the jars in the fridge to see if the colder temperature will help it firm up.
Would I be able to halve this recipe for a small batch project?
Yes.
So I made my first foray into canning last night via this recipe. It turned out wonderfully, your site is wonderful, and I will be doing lots more canning in the future! Thanks so much.
Hi, Marisa,
I have a bag of lemons from a family tree and local honey from the farmers market, and I’m eager to try some marmalade. After reading through the comments, I notice several folks found the results bitter. I wonder if using the technique from your blood orange marmalade– soaking the fruit in water overnight– would help reduce the bitterness? Could I reduce or eliminate the pectin if I soak the seeds along with the fruit?
Thanks for your wonderful blog! I’m finding it a great resource as I get back into canning (learned how when I was a kid, but haven’t done anything since). Your book is on my wish list this year.
Dear marisa,
I am going to tackle this tomorrow. I chose to do this because it looks amazing but I bought 30 lemons to make Limoncello so my lemons are naked I used the zest for the Limoncello. Do you think it is still a good idea?
Also not sure I can find pectin in South Africa. Could I use gelatin? Thank you so much I am so excited to make this for Gifts. Love your blog.
Simone, should not make this recipe if you’ve stripped the zest from your lemons. Marmalade needs the zest. And gelatin isn’t the same thing as pectin. It won’t set up correctly.
I made this and it was quite bitter even though I added another cup of sugar above what the recipe stated. What did I do wrong? I also had another question. If you have a jar whose lid seals before you put it in the water bath canner, can you still put it in safely to boil?
So glad I found this recipe, and this website. My lemon and fig trees are so abundant this year — I have to do something with the wonderful fruit. Looking forward to making marmalade tomorrow.
Jeanee,
I hope you didn’t throw it out. Use it to make lemon honey tea. Stir it into either hot or cold water and drink. I plan to use this recipe for this purpose. A Chinese friend has jars of something very similar to this that is delicious stirred into water.
Thank you, Marisa.
i tried this recipe and did a double batch. unfortunately it did not turn out even though i followed all of the instructions. does it take days for this to congeal into jelly,because what i have looks like syrup with lemon rinds. feel like i wasted around $40 and that doesn’t include the jars and my time. this was the first recipe i have tried from this site and probably the last.
Jeanee, the reason it didn’t turn out is that you doubled the batch. You can’t double sweet preserves like this one because you won’t get a good set. I wrote a whole blog post on the topic: https://foodinjars.com.s164546.gridserver.com/arugulapesto/2011/01/canning-101-why-you-shouldnt-double-batches-of-jam/
no i did not through this batch away. and i actually made this recipe again today carefully following your instructions. this time it set up as quickly as it cooled. and i am very pleased to say it seems to have yieled a product just like store bought marmalade.
as for the first batch suprisingly it taste very delicious. so i am glad i did not throw it all away. i even shared some of it with my friends and they are going to use it in hot tea during the winter. the mixture will render a healthy dose of vitamin c.
by the way i know i said i would never try any of your recipes again
continued from above….
but since i decided to give this one another try i was checking out your recipe for blackberry jam. is there any chance that recipe might be doubled because it seems like a lot of work for 3 pints of jam.
could you please email me with an answer since i want make this recipe while the blackberries are in season now.
thank you
abundently found at my local farmers market.
s at
Jeanee, read this post to learn why it’s not a good idea to double batches of jam: https://foodinjars.com.s164546.gridserver.com/arugulapesto/2011/01/canning-101-why-you-shouldnt-double-batches-of-jam/
I think I see the pith in the chopped lemons. Am I right. Does it not make the jelly bitter. I made candied orange peels one time, they were so bitter I had to throw them away.
Thanks,
I just made this recipe this morning.. I ended up with I think a bit more than what the recipe said 100 oz. made in to 8 12 oz. jelly jars and 4 oz. jelly jar. Very easy to follow the recipe supplied and the taste is absolutely to die for! Thank you so much for sharing.
So glad to hear that it worked for you! Yield variations are entirely normal, so there’s nothing to worry about there.
Thanks Marisa – that’s what I thought. I juiced the 10 lemons for 2 full cups of pure lemon juice and more pips than I have ever seen. I only used 1 cup of the juice, plus 1-1/2 cups of water, 2 cups of honey, 3 cups of sugar, and 2 pouches of pectin, plus the pips in a tea ball. I also had some crystallized ginger that I cut up and added to the pot – silly me I thought those pieces would melt. So I have 6 jars of honey-lemon jelly with a hint of ginger. Tastes like something to put into hot tea. Thank you again, Rosalie
Hi Marisa
Very happy to have found your wbsite. I just started batch of limoncello, using the rind of 10 lemons and was looking for something to do with the lemons. Can I use these lemons – no rind but with the pith? Most recipes call for removing the pith. Did you cut the segments off between the membranes? Didn’t using the pith make it bitter?
Thanks a bunch,
Rosalie
Roselie, I wouldn’t use the pith. Instead, I recommend making a lemon jelly with the flesh of the fruit. Juice it, combine with half as much sugar as juice and boil until it reaches 220 degrees.
I don’t know much about marmalade but I’d really like to try this recipe, but replace some of the sugar with xylitol. Will that work? Will it still keep?
Thanks!
Cynthia, please read the section of this post, entitled “on reducing sugar.”
Hello,
So, chopping lemons is not required if you have an “old fashioned” grinder. After juicing the lemons I ground the peels in a manual grinder (the same we use to make roast beef hash, to can cucumber relish, and to make homemade potato sausage.) If you don’t have one, we purchased (both of) ours at second-hand shops (then received another from mother who used hers frequently when I was a child.) I squeezed the lemons first in a manual juicer and then ground the rinds in the grinder. I discarded the seeds from the juiced lemons – reserving the pulp and adding it to the ground lemons and the water. I refrigerated this mixture overnight before proceeding with the recipe. The end result turned out great!
Okay, I know this is an old post, but I have been searching high and low for a lemon marmalade recipe and I think that this one is the winner! I love to can fruits and veggies…it makes my inner hamster very happy.
Did you ever try it with ginger?
I haven’t yet canned anything in my life, though I’ve watched my Granny do it all my life and LOVE her canned goods. Now that I’ve moved to Germany, I’m lacking in a lot of pre-prepared foods I was used to back home and I miss my Granny’s goods (though she sometimes sneaks some in her carepackages). So, I’ve begun compiling canning recipes to help inspire me to begin the process eventually and this is in it! I can’t wait to make a can of this. Thank you for sharing! 🙂
Thank you SO very much! I’ve just finished canning four dozen jars of blueberry jam and was hunting for a lemon recipe to compliment them. These will make BEAUTIFUL Christmas presents – and it looks so easy!