Meyer Lemon Marmalade

Rainy Paddy’s Day Parade.

Hello there. Happy belated St. Patrick’s Day!  Are you looking forward to Spring as much as I am? Daylight savings plus having a few sunny days has been an incredible prelude to warmer weather. I’m looking forward to getting outside more, longer days, grilling, gardening, camping, the pool, all of it! I know, I’m getting ahead of myself by a few months with some of that stuff, but I also know that time flies. 

I’m really looking forward to Spring for another reason too. By the time March comes around, I’m so sick of eating all of the same things. Broccoli, cauliflower, oranges, apples. These foods are fine, but I’m so ready for some new fruits and veggies. But I have found a new ingredient that has improved my bread baking. For the past month or so, I’ve been making bread with Red Fife wheat grown and milled here in Wisconsin. It is SO good. The Red Fife flour tastes nutty and is a little bit reminiscent of rye, in a very subtle way. I love this homemade bread toasted with butter and jam.

 I also love homemade jam, another favorite summer pastime, picking fruit and canning. I love how there’s always a new fruit in season every few weeks throughout the summer.  And having jam all winter isn’t too bad either.  I still remember going strawberry picking with my mom and my brother when I was small and we lived in Oregon.  We would get pounds and pounds of berries and make so many jars of strawberry jam. That jam was amazing. Nothing like store bought. I still love making jam. And even though I usually think of it as a summer activity, citrus fruits work great for winter jam. 

Last time I was at Trader Joe’s I bought a bag of Meyer lemons. When I got home, I stuck them in the back of my fridge where they’ve  been ever since. Meyer lemons are so good, but for me, they aren’t sour enough to use like a regular lemon or lime, so aside from putting in a dessert, I struggle with how to use them. Good thing I ran out of jam yesterday. Well, I never really run out actually, unless I’m too lazy to walk down to the store where we almost always have some jam, marmalade, golden syrup, and all kinds of things I can use. Still, I had these lemons and they wouldn’t last much longer.

I read a couple of recipes for Meyer Lemon Marmalade.  It seemed like a lot of the steps were designed to minimize the bitterness that can be present with too much rind and pith which makes sense. But those steps can be a pain. I read a few recipes that were simpler, but a lot of their reviews complained of bitterness, so I decided to take the time to remove the pith completely and blanch the rind multiple times. It took some time, but I was just hanging out around the house anyway and the result was worth it. 

Ingredients

1 ¼ to 1 ½ cup sugar

6 Meyer lemons 

1 tbs pectin 

Directions

Juice the lemons

Place the seeds in a cheesecloth bag and set aside. (optional)

Remove flesh and pith so that you have only the skin of each lemon left.

Cut the lemon rinds into strips.

Place in pot and cover with cold water. 

Bring to a boil and boil for one minute. 

Strain and run cold water over them.

Repeat boiling for one minute and straining twice. 

Place rind back in the pot, add sugar, reserved juice, pectin and bag of seeds.

Simmer for about 45 minutes until set. 

Spoon into a jar and refrigerate.

Jam will last 2 -4 weeks.

*Note: This jam will firm up a lot as it cools, don't cook it down until it has a jam-like consistency or it will end up too firm. I stopped cooking mine when it was about the consistency of maple syrup, maybe slightly thinner. 

The seeds have pectin in them which will help the jam thicken without adding pectin, but you can skip this step and it will be fine.

Little lemon caps.

Pulp, throw this away.

Rind - cut this up.

You should be able to get this at the grocery store. You can make this jam without this but it may take longer to set.

Blanching the rind.

Here it is when it’s almost done, you can see the bubbles get larger.

8 Fun "Paddy's Day" Traditions

You may know “Paddy’s Day” is a national holiday in both Ireland and Northern Island. But did you know that until the 1970s pubs in Ireland were closed on St. Patrick’s Day? St. Patrick’s day was a historically religious holiday brought to the U.S. by Irish Catholic immigrants. Paddy’s Day evolved into a secular tradition that celebrates Ireland and Irish traditions and food. Now, even in Dublin, St. Patrick’s day is celebrated in the pubs, and on the streets with a huge parade and festivities lasting multiple days. 

Here are 8 fun Paddy’s Day traditions in a few U.S. cities.  

8. Seattle lights the space needle green.

7. Boston has a huge parade in “Southie” and a 5K to run off all that beer.

6. Philadelphia has its own St. Patrick's Day Observance Association which hosts its historical annual parade and even a St. Patrick’s Day golf tournament.

5. Chicago is famous for dyeing the river bright green and throwing big parties in Grant Park and at the Irish American Heritage Center on the north side of the City.

4. Green horses are featured in Lawrence, Kansas’ St. Patrick’s Day festivities.

3. Portland, Maine kicks off its St. Patrick's Day celebrations with a plunge into the ice cold waters to raise funds for the Portland Firefighters Children's Burns Foundation. 

2. New London, Wisconsin’s Shamrock Club changes the “New London” highway signs to read “New Dublin”

1. The Dancing Grannies perform at the Milwaukee Irish Parade. They are such an inspiration, especially in the aftermath of the tragic events this summer in Waukesha. 

These days most people celebrate Paddy’s Day with beer, wearing green, and corned beef and cabbage.  Even though we LOVE Irish bacon and can easily find it here in America (more easily than most people, for obvious reasons), we eat corned beef on Paddy’s Day.  We also made St. Patrick’s Day sugar cookies. And ordered all the St. Patrick’s day doughnuts from Ms. Molly’s last Saturday (I should have taken pictures but they were gone instantly). 

Happy Paddy’s Day!!!

This is my oldest daughter “drinking” her cookie - which is a green beer.

4 Bumps and a Birthday Cake

The Irish have some weird traditions, I have to tell you. Have you ever heard of “Birthday Bumps”?  Birthday bumps are a tradition in Ireland where the birthday person is taken by the arms and legs and bounced up and down in the air with their head touching the floor the same number of times as their years of life. While I think my kids (including the birthday girl)  would have really enjoyed it if we bumped Noelle on her birthday, she’s gotten too big for me to do this without fear of dropping her on her head. Instead, I baked her a cake and let her lick the spoon.

These two were so excited about the cake and the birthday.

At her age (or any age), all you really need to make a birthday special is CAKE. Even though I didn’t know how to change a diaper until I had my first child, somehow I knew how important cakes were going to be to my kids. Before I had my oldest, Emmett, I bought all of the equipment necessary to make a layer cake. After he was born, I studied cake decorating youtube videos so that I would be ready for his 1st birthday.  Ever since, I’ve been making each of my kids a homemade cake for their birthdays.  Sometimes they tell me what flavor or theme they want months in advance, and just as with Halloween costumes, they change their minds at the last minute, requiring me to start from square one.   

This year, Noelle surprised me by sticking to the Chocolate on Chocolate “Lollipop” themed cake which she requested back in October. Paul thought I was going to make the cake look like a Lollipop. I told him that he’s clearly been watching too much of the Great British Bakeoff and who does he think I am anyway?  I made something much, much easier and all of the kids loved it. 

I decided to use a recipe from the amazing book Zoe Bakes Cakes, which I was able to download from the library. Amazingly, I followed the recipes exactly for both the frosting and the cake and I’m not sorry! I topped it with her fave, lollipops and a caramel apple, and a lollipop candle. She was in heaven. And it reminded me how little it takes to make their special day feel truly special. 

It looks wonky here but once it gets covered with frosting it will all even out.

I just spread it on thick and don’t worry about what it looks like. I’ll fix it later.

After smoothing things out a bit.

Don’t you just want to eat this with a spoon?

I made chocolate shavings that I put on the top. I tried to put them on the sides but just gave up. The frosting was too set by then and I was afraid I was going to ruin the cake by messing with it anymore. I bought the lollipops from Ashley’s and the candied apple from Sweettrio in Grafton. Love both shops! So many sweet treats!

 If you want to make this cake, the recipe is here. I scaled the cake recipe down by half to make a 4-layer 6-inch cake and I made ⅔ of the frosting recipe, which was EXACTLY enough. Emmett helped me with the math. Everyone helped me eat the tops of the cake layers after I leveled them. I cannot believe my baby is 4 years old! 

 Happy December everyone! I know it’s a busy time and I hope you are enjoying it.  I’ve been doing all of my Christmas shopping locally which has been really fun. We’ve shopped everywhere in Cedarburg, but also Grafton, Port Washington and other places close by and it’s been a great way to see more of the area. There are so many unique places to shop right here in our community. And for those of you who have shopped with us in Long Grove, Crystal Lake or here in Cedarburg, THANK YOU. It means so much to us that you have supported our family business. Whether you’ve been coming in for decades, or just once, we appreciate you. Happy Holidays!