20210201 Easy Instant Pot Marmalade
Preparing to make a traditional panettone can sometimes be daunting, especially when I don't have MANY ingredients! A panettone recipe from Chef Alphonso Pepe calls for several citrus fruit paste. It is discouraging that I have to pause to prepare these ingredients every time before I can make his panettone. I like spontaneous baking, and that's why I love CLAS. Any extended prep work before a bake will most likely deter me from baking. But Chef PePe's panettone sounds so refreshing with all the citrus fruit ingredients, and I want to try it. So I came up with the idea of making various citrus fruit marmalades to expedite the prep work. This way, I will have these ingredients handy and I can make his panettone whenever I want. But the workflow of making marmalades that I can find is laborious; even those which claim to be "simple" are not simple enough for me. So, I decided to use my tools to turn it into an easy job. Here's how I do it:
Weigh the citrus, then weigh an equal amount of sugar (1:1). You may adjust the sugar amount according to your preferred ratio. For every 2kg of sugar used, you need to add the juice of at least one lemon ?.
Use an automatic citrus peeler to peel both citrus fruits. 
Roughly cut the citrus strands with scissors, then pulse them in a food processor. 
Use an electric juicer to juice the citrus. 
If you decide to also use the pith, process it at this stage to get rid of its bitterness. Then make sure to pulse the pith as well. 
Snip extra pulp and scoop the membranes out of the compost if you are not going to use the pith.
All three ingredients to make marmalade:
Dump them into the Instant Pot
High-pressure cook for 5 minutes if you do not use the pith, and if you do, add a few minutes. Once depressurized, "saute" to boil the mixture until it reaches 220F. 
Load the marmalade in canning jars and process them using your preferred canning method. I found that ~900g of citrus at a 1:1 ratio of sugar yield ~ 5x250ml jars, which fit perfectly in my Instant Pot basket.
This is the orange marmalade that I made yesterday using the peel/zest part only. Without the pith, there were not enough peels to evenly distribute throughout the marmalade. It's also harder to gel. I had to increase the sugar to a final ratio of 1:2 for it to set, which made it syrupy. To avoid this, next time I may have to increase the peels to compensate for the weight of the pith not used, or more completely scoop the membranes out of the compost. 
This is the ? mandarin marmalade that I made with whole fruit. So far, I've found that mandarin is the perfect citrus that yields the least bitter marmalade without extra pith processing.
Vibrant color with the perfect taste and texture. 
🥝
Buddha's hand (citron)
Comments
What lovely marmalade! And great photos!!I never thought to look for an I.P. recipe, that's brilliant. Nicely done.
IP is my life saver!
Yippee
We don’t usually eat marmalade but having looked at your recipe and great tutorial I’ll bookmark this post for future use. Great recommendation about the mandarin oranges. Thanks Yippie.
Benny
but you can use it in cooking, baking, and GIFTING! Think about it, Benny, your homemade bread and marmalade, who's not going to love it?! They are a perfect gifting combination!
Glad you like my post. I hope it's helpful.
Yippee
Edit to add photos.
I followed your IP process above. 2 lbs lemons, 2 lbs sugar.
Analysis: It seemed pretty syrupy at first, but as it cooled it was thickening better than expected. The solid bits were floating to the top of the jar, so as it cools I am gently inverting the jar to distribute the peels throughout. So far that seems to be helping. I didn't have to do that last year when I did orange marmalade on the stovetop. I wonder if something about using the pressure cooker changes things for some reason? 🤔 This was certainly wayyyy faster! Thank you again for posting your process!
Edit:
Tiping it a few times while it cooled did help. It has an iteresting texture. It's more like lemon jelly with inclusions, not than what I would consider a marmalade, and it tastes sweeter. Next time I may go with a littleless sugar and see how that works.
Hi Mary,
I just made a pulp-less, all pith citron marmalade. To avoid making it too syrupy, I used as little water as possible and double the sugar to water ratio, which is now 2:1. And I "saute" it until it got to 220F+. You can see in the pictures that it's not runny at all.
Yippee
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Hi Yippee,
What a delightful jar of marmalade!! You are right-it would make a terrific gift.
Are there other uses of Buddha hand citron? What an unusual citrus!
I was wondering if it is worth growing in a pot (Four Winds has a semidwarf).
We've run out of room in the yard. :(
If I had a choice, I would have grown a regular citron plant, but citrus plants are prohibited from being shipped into CA, so I can only grow what I can find locally. The plants from 4winds seem a bit pricey. I think I only paid $30 plus tax for my Buddha ✋ two years ago.
Yippee