'Healthy' Carrot Marmalade

Video HERE

I make a number of preserves - mainly for flavouring chocolates - and my favourite marmalade recipe is essentially 'blend the fruit to a puree, add equal weight of sugar and water and boil to 105C' - and works with any citrus fruit. Traditional marmalade does not use any added pectin because there is a lot in the pith of citrus fruits.

Recently I have decided to try and reduce the amount of sugar in everything I make. I found a carrot marmalade recipe online and I wondered if I could combine them... this is my experimental recipe, which came out OK... I have notes for future attempts after the recipe.

Ingredients:
2 Oranges
2 Lemons
450-500g Carrots
4 Cardamom Pods
400g Granulated Sugar
1ltr Water
2" Root Ginger

Method:

1. THE NIGHT BEFORE - Remove the zest from the fruit, then cut in half and remove any pips* before squeezing the juice into a blender. Cut the fruit into 1/4's and drop into the blender as well. Add a splash of water and blend to a puree, then tip into a bowl.
2. Trim the top and bottom off the carrots then grate coarsely** then add to the bowl.
3. Crush the cardamom and split the pods open, add to the bowl with the sugar.
4. Chop the peel into fine shards, then add to the bowl. Mix well, cover and leave for at least 6 hours, or overnight.
5. THE NEXT DAY - Tip the bowl into a large pan, add the water***. Chop the ginger into chunky pieces**** then add to the pan.
6. Bring to a boil, then simmer for about 1 hour.
7. Wash and rinse your jars and lids, then transfer to the oven at GM1/70C*****.
8. Increase the heat and stir occasionally until it reaches 105C.
9. Remove the ginger then carefully ladle into jars - within 1cm(1/4") of the top - screw on the lids and leave to cool.

* I always remove the pips because they usually escape the blender unharmed. They do contain some pectin so if you want to wrap them in a bundle and add them to the pan you can - just don't forget to fish them out before jarring.
** Beyond removing the top and bottom I don't bother peeling carrots unless they've been around a while and are looking worse for storage.
*** Feel free to add more water - see notes below.
**** Chunky ginger will release plenty of flavour, but if you want it stronger cut it relatively fine and leave it in.
***** Or run the jars through a hot dishwasher cycle and fill whilst still hot from the machine.

Notes

This produced an OK marmalade, not particularly pretty - and I miss the clear jelly with floating peel that I normally make, but I think next time I can definitely do it better...

• Separate the peel as usual and puree the fruit, but transfer to a muslin bag to keep the jelly clear.
• More spice required.
• Add at least double the water into the pan.
• Boil slightly longer, to 108C in order to extract more pectin from the pith.

For a first attempt at a diabetic Frankenstein recipe this isn't bad - it just looks ugly in the jar!