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1
Thoroughly wash all your citrus fruit and remove the zest with a vegetable peeler. Scrape as much of the pith as possible from each strip of peel with a very sharp knife and slice the zest into very small, thin pieces.
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2
Place the prepared zest, water and baking soda in a nonreactive pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
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3
In the meantime segment your zested citrus fruit by slicing off the ends of each fruit, standing it up on a cutting board and slicing off the pith. Then cut each fruit in half and cut between the membranes to free the segments. Place the segments in a 4-cup measuring cup and keep going until you have accumulated 3 1/2 cups of segments and juice.
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4
Add the segments with juice and 1 cup of the sugar into the peel mixture. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes longer.
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5
Stir in the remaining 5 cups of sugar and butter and bring to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly.
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6
Quickly stir in the pectin and return to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly for 1 minute.
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7
Remove from the heat and stir constantly for 6-8 minutes to evenly distribute the zest throughout the marmalade (if you skip this step you will end up with all of your zest floating to the top of your jars!).
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8
Ladle quickly into sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitude.
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9
The jars need to sit for 2 weeks before you taste to let the marmalade mellow and lose some of its bitterness. I usually get somewhere between 3 and 4 pints from this recipe!
