With all of the lovely citrus fruit in abundance right now at the market, I purchased a bevy with the intention of making some sort of citrus marmalade. When I arrived home, bags of blood oranges, and Seville sour oranges in tow, I began doing a bit of research on marmalade jam recipes on the internet, only to have my hopes of wintertime jam smashed to a pulp. Do you have any idea just how much sugar is required in making marmalade? A lot. Quite a lot. Some recipes called for a pounds worth of sugar when making simply a few measly jars worth of marmalade.

Now there is nothing wrong with sugar. In fact I love the stuff, some would even say I love it too much, with cakes and cookies (homemade or otherwise) tumbling out of my kitchen on a regular basis. But there is something too sweetly intimidating about pouring not cups, but pounds of the sweet stuff to make a condiment for one household. Properly scared off by multi-stepped, rot-your-teeth-out-of-your-head recipes, I cast all of my roly-poly oranges aside until I could decide what to do with them.

So I made jam– a marmalade of sorts. Crisp and pure, tinged with a subtle bitterness from the juice of many Seville oranges co-mingling with the gorgeous, crimson glow of blood orange juice, this jelly is sublime. It seemed a shame to let all of the oranges go to waste, they simply had to made into something fabulous. But it also seemed a shame to let all of the wonderful sweet-bitterness be drowned out by pounds of sweetener. I compromised.

I juiced all of the oranges, my fingertips dyed a rosy hue from the sanguine pulp of the blood oranges. I zested some of the Seville oranges, carefully tasting the puckery flavor of the skin. I added some water, and a healthy though unremarkable dose of sugar, a bit of pectin (the home canner’s best friend), and vigorously boiled away. With the aid of a candy thermometer, I turned the heat off when the mixture reached 224 degrees (the gelling point). This took about 30 minutes.

Making your own jam always remains somewhat of a mystery to me. As I mindfully poured the jam mixture into the prepared, sterilized jars, I really wasn’t even sure how, or if it would turn out all. After all of the juicing, zesting, and boiling, what I appeared to have was just glorified juice, slightly thickened by the addition of pectin. But I poured away, crossing my fingers as I let the jam cool.

By the next morning I was left with a sunny, honeyed, gelatinous, almost-mass, waiting to be slathered on my morning toast. Now I only wish that I made more.