More Marmalade! Lemon with Rose Petals

Lemon Marmalade with Rose Petals (Second marmalade recipe!)

I can’t resist using this picture of Shirley’s window a second time, especially since this is the second marmalade installment.  It’s like I added the green bottle yesterday and the purple bottle today. 

That’s an issue for me: self discipline.  I’ll never manage to do what Shirley has done.  Will this whole blog get highjacked by marmalade? 

Unlikely, since it’s high in sugar, which does not suit my Adelle Davis guidelines, and I eat it only very rarely, and make it perhaps once a year, although twice this year, so far.



Since the peels are used, use organic lemons.

Anyway, I had all those leftover organic lemons from the Curried Easter dinner, and I needed to use them up!

This lemon marmalade is absolutely gorgeous!  Yesterday, I was eating it with plain yogurt, but there will be no such sugary transgressions today, I hope. 

6 organic lemons, washed
6 cups cold water
pinch of salt
1 cup vanilla sugar
2 cups raw sugar cane crystals
1 ½ tablespoons rose petals
1 ½ teaspoons orange blossom water

Sterilized jars and lids

Cut ends off lemons and discard.  Halve lemons, then cut into slices, then slice those finely.  I did the last three lemons with my sharpest knife to achieve the finest thread possible, because I like a variety of textures.  Pick out and keep the seeds.  These lemons had from zero to three seeds each, so I had very few, which means less pectin.  Maybe one should save orange seeds for such a purpose?

Use sharpest knife to slice thinly.  Keep pits!

As you are cutting the lemons, slide them and their juice into the pot.  Once all lemons are in the pot, put the seeds into a tea ball, or cheesecloth, and place it in with the lemons, add the salt and pour in the water.  Put a lid on the pot, bring to a boil, then reduce to medium low to simmer for 30 to 45 minutes.  Turn off, and let sit overnight. 

In the morning, set up your jar sterilizing unit. I use a big canning pot, filled with water and jars.  I rigged up a lid, and put the heat on high.  Turn the heat back on under the lemons, and add the sugars.  Stir, and bring to a boil.  

Once it’s boiling, reduce heat to medium low, and boil for at least 40 minutes. 

This is probably the best time to add the rose petals.  Being rose flavour greedy, I added mine the evening before, in the first boil, and spent the evening floating around the house in a state of nose rapture.  However, I regretted that in the morning, because I could see that the pigment had leeched out of the petals, and turned my marmalade an apricot pink.

The pits add the pectin!

You need the petals to cook long enough to not get snarled in people’s teeth, but not so long as to lose their shape and colour.  To compensate, I added more petals in the last half hour of cooking this morning.  As it became apparent that the lemons were starting to jell, I turned the heat down further, and started in with the jell tests.  

Put a tiny amount, less than a half teaspoon onto a cold plate, to see if it’s still runny.  If it’s syrupy, keep cooking.  If it shows some resistance, it’s done.  Once again, my marmalade came out a bit runny, but I find that preferable to the impossibly stiff concoction I made a few years ago.  Once you decide the consistency is right, turn off the heat, and stir in the orange blossom water.  Ladle into sterilized jars, put on the sterilized lids, and loosely place the bands on the jars.  Tighten the bands 24 hours later. 

Husband person said this reminds him of lemon curd, which we used to enjoy on toast till I read the ingredients one sad day. 

I’m looking forward to taking this to a garden party whose host has just acquired some fine English bone china which will compliment her dahlia garden.  I will take this lemon and rose petal marmalade, along with scones and Devonshire cream. 

Again, it’s not remotely Indian, unless you consider those Brits doing their best while in India to lord it over the Indians, holding teacups made of fine bone china, as they enviously eyed the Indian art, jewellery, architecture, philosophy, women, music, food, the list is too long…  Anway, slap my hands if you see me heading toward the sugar, please!

Would be even more delicious on a scone, with maybe a bit of cream?

This made three and a half jars... but so worth it!