omorka | Sweet Spiced Marmalade

So I was playing around with this awesome recipe as I worked through the extra satsumas (about five pounds of them all told!) and I came up with something a little bit different. I'll go ahead and record it for posterity:

2 lbs mixed satsumas & Meyer lemons (I made this twice, once with 1.5 lbs of satsumas and 0.5 lbs of Meyer lemons and once with the proportions reversed, and it worked both ways)
5 cups water
1 large-ish cinnamon stick
1 T whole cloves
1 vanilla bean
2 lbs sugar (I used organic sugar)

Scrub the fruit (if you don't have a giant bag of fruit handed to you off the tree, use organic ones or at least farmer's market ones that haven't been waxed). Peel the satsumas and chop the fruit roughly; pick out any seeds and add the fruit and juice to the jam kettle (you'll need a heavy-bottomed four-quart pot). Cut the satsuma peels into coarse strips about 3/4 inch wide, then slice the strips crosswise into shreds a little less than 1/8" wide; add to kettle. Trim the ends of the lemons and cut lengthwise into quarters (eighths, if they're large); remove any visible seeds. Slice the quarters crosswise as thin as possible, removing any missed seeds as you slice. Scrape lemon slices and juice into the kettle. Add water and cinnamon stick. Put whole cloves in a large tea ball. Cut the vanilla bean into three or four pieces; score each lightly lengthwise and add to tea ball. Close the tea ball and add to kettle. Bring to a rolling boil for 7 minutes, stirring once or twice; cover and boil 1 minute more. Remove from heat and allow to cool for at least an hour; refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Take the pot out of the fridge about 45 minutes before you intend to start working on it. Remove the cinnamon stick and the tea ball. Take out the vanilla bean and scrape with the flat side of a knife to release the seeds; return seed goo to jam pot and discard the pod. Affix candy thermometer to side of pot and return the whole mess to a boil; boil for about 20 minutes, or until the lemon peels are tender & most of the flesh has fallen off. Add the sugar all at once and stir until dissolved; return to a full rolling boil. Continue to boil for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently (more frequently as it starts to thicken up; you do not want the bottom scorching), until the mixture has thickened slightly and the thermometer reads somewhere between 220 and 222 degrees F. (I agree with the blogger linked above that the plate-and-spoon test for jam is No Damn Good for this stuff; go by temperature first, texture second.) Take your good wooden spoon and begin stirring vigorously, scraping the bottom and sides, while loudly singing a song of a length between two minutes thirty seconds and three minutes (I, of course, used the Monkees' "I'm a Believer") directly at the marmalade. When the song is done, remove from the heat immediately; keep stirring as the bubbling subsides, which will take a minute or two (how long depends on how well your jam kettle retains heat).

Let the marmalade sit off the heat for ten minutes; it will thicken a bit more (this keeps the heavier lemon peel from settling out in the jars). Stir lightly and ladle into sterilized jars; process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes if you intend to keep these in the cupboard. (If you're going to keep them in the fridge, you can just put the sterilized lids on and tighten.) Let cool, label, & store. Wait a week before opening, as it takes a few days to set up properly.

Note: this is pretty sweet for marmalade - the satsuma peels have almost no bitterness to them, and the Meyer lemons don't have much, especially compared to Seville oranges. The sweet spices only enhance that; this is breakfast marmalade, or possibly even dessert, not dinner marmalade.

Note note: If you like Constant Comment tea, the mostly-satsuma version of this smells a lot like it.