When I am blessed with an abundant crop of cumquats about 4 months before Christmas I make Cumquat Brandy, at least one bottle each year. This year I had the best crop ever and was left with what to do with them. I considered the Cumquat Brandy route but found that I had 2 half full bottles from previous years and still had some left in the infusing bottle.  I just blended the different vintages, packed one to take on holidays and left the other for Christmas.

I tried making Brazilian Limonade with a handful of cumquats and found it to be amazing, also this mix was good as a Margarita spin off with Tequila and Triple Sec added.

Then I found this super simple recipe and made a batch, then the next day made a batch with the rest of the crop of cumquats. It is beautiful, clear orange colour with a tart, yet sweet citrus flavour.  It gels up nicely and tastes wonderful on my seed breakfast mix, great on toast and fabulous when warmed up and served with vanilla ice-cream and lemon sorbet. It would also be fabulous with Lemon Myrtle ice cream.

Cumquats are entirely edible when ripe, rind and all (although the seeds are a pain to remove). The skin is actually quite sweet, it is the juice that is tart.

CUMQUAT MAGIC SAUCY JAMMY STUFF

Ingredients

• 1 kg ripe cumquats – cut into 1/4s and remove seeds
• 3 cups white sugar – add more to taste
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional – could also be good with ginger but I just did it without any spices)

Directions

1. 1. Wash the cumquats well and drain to dry.
   2. Find a comfy chair in front of the TV or pick a podcast and settle into at least half an hour of cutting the cuquats into quarters and removing the seeds. I have found that a pointed chopstick works best.
   3. Put the quartered, seedles cumquats into a saucepan, level off and gently push down. Just cover with water
   4. Bring to a boil then simmer for 30 minutes. The flesh will dissolve, the white pith will go clear and water will evaporate off. Make sure to start stirring regularly as the mix thickens or it will stick to the bottom of the pan and the colour of the mixture will darken.
   5. Add sugar and any spices, return to a slow boil, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring continuously
   6. Remove from heat and pour into clean, hot jars and add caps.
   7. If desired heat process at 90C for 60 minutes in the steam oven (or whatever method suits). It will go darker.