Recently I bought a Calamondin tree from a local store here in Ireland. A Calamondin is an orange lime from the Philippines, and my tree was imported from The Netherlands. Calamondins are very tart and taste like lemons or limes with a hint or orange flavour. Their color can be orange, orange and green, or green depending of how the fruit ripens. A lot of people mistake calamondins for clementines but they are limes and very tart. They aren’t sold in stores because as soon as they are picked they rot and mold literally in a matter of minutes. So if you want these limes the only way to them is to grow a tree yourself.

I decided to make marmalade out of the calamondin fruit and to bring our the orange flavor of the fruit. The marmalade taste a lot like orange marmalade with lemon but the lemon tartiness taste more like tart oranges. Our little baby was the one who gave this marmalade its name because he thinks it looks like orange fire when held up to the light. “Orange Fire” was a prefect way to describe this sweet yet tart marmalade a s the name has stuck.

When making this marmalade remember that the fruit is very sour so you need to add a lot of sugar to taste to make it sweet. Some calamondins can be more or less sour depending on the type of fertilizer use and how often it is used. Making this recipe a sugar to taste, cook lime peels until translucent recipe.

Orange Fire Marmalade Recipe

1 part Calamondin juice

1 part Water

3 to 4 parts Sugar (to taste)

All left over Peels and Pulp

Step 1. Cut calamondin limes in half and squeeze the juice unto a measuring cup. Measure equals parts juice and water.

Step 2. Finely slice peels and pulp into fine slivers and add juice, water, and pulp to sauce pan.

Step 3. Add 3 parts sugar to the sauce pan and bring to a slow boil, after it starts to boil turn it down to a simmer and taste to see if it is to tart if it is to tart add more sugar. Remember to stir marmalade so it doesn’t burn on the bottom.

Step 4. Simmer and stir marmalade until the skins of the fruit are translucent and liquid is a thick syrup.

Note: To test liquid stick your stirring spoon into the liquid and hold it up above the the steam of your pot. To where it can cool off just little watch the liquid pour off of the spoon. The liquid should slowly pour off of the spoon and be thick but not thick enough to string off of the spoon. If little string forms you are on your way to making candy and not marmalade. If you have never made homemade marmalade before you may notice a difference in consistency between store bought and home made. Don’t worry without additives and jelly’s marmalade is suppose to be less firm that jam and no where near as hard jelly. Real marmalade is thick a liquidity and delicious so if your marmalade comes out a little more runny then you thought it should don’t worry, and if it is to runny you can always heat it longer to make it thicker later. Look under how to save your marmalade below.

Step 5. Once liquid is thick but not stringy remove from heat and allow to cold. While cooling if you rake a spoon over your marmalade and it is thick and wrinkles a little you have a job well done.

Step 6. Pour cooled marmalade into a jar and once it is no longer warm to touch place in the refrigerator.

How to save your Marmalade

So you have made your marmalade and put it into the refrigerator taken it out the next day and notice it’s more like a thick juice that marmalade. Well never fear it can be saved. Here’s what you will need to do.

Step 1. Take your marmalade out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter to her room temperature. (If you try to do this to cold marmalade you might end up with sugar crystals each is no fun)

Step 2 Once the marmalade is room temperature pour it out into a sauce pan and place it on a cold stove.

Step 3 Slowly heat up the stove starting at the lowest setting giving the marmalade time to heat up before you turn the stove up higher.

Step 4 Once you get the marmalade up to a simmer leave it there until more of the water has steamed up and the liquid is thicker than you had it before but not stringy. Keeping a close watch so your liquid does not turn brown it should stay clear brown means the sugar has burned. Remember to stir stir stir through the process.

Step 5 Once it’s thicker remove from heat, let it cool, jar and refrigerate like before.

You can enjoy your Orange Fire Marmalade warm or chilled for a sweet and tart treat over toast, on scones, or by the spoonfuls. I hope you enjoyed this recipe.