Spring greetings from Robert Lambert! With my brand edging onto the national stage I'm meeting the challenge with a video and a new media page on my web site. It provides links to all press, blog and online coverage as well as radio interviews, the most recent a local segment about my marmalades. I am pleased by the strong customer response to the updated web site. Business grew by over 30% last year! 

Weather this winter has been strange across much of the country, but as citrus season comes to a close I am left to reflect on the effects of cold and dry conditions across most of the range of my sources. The fragility of my network was brought home last month as I approached some of my favorite trees at the Gene Lester Collection and found nothing where, the year before, branches snapped under the weight of engorged fruit. 

Low temperatures cause citrus peels to thicken, so fruits I would normally have cut whole for marmalade now need to have the skin removed separately and more of the white pith discarded. Fruit is less juicy so more fruit is needed to achieve the same effect in syrups and marmalades. More work and expense. The silver lining is that the oils in the peels are more concentrated, more intensely fragrant than in years, the colors deeper. 

The new Four Orange Marmalade is a nod to my Four Orange Chocolate Sauce. I thought it might be fun to combine four very different oranges to see what each could lend the others in a flavor blend. The ones I chose are the classic Seville bitter orange, the brilliant, berry-like blood orange, the scented bergamot sour orange, and the Poorman orange, an orange-grapefruit hybrid. You can actually taste each peel in the mix as you enjoy their mingling juices. As evidenced by this photo of the pot about to cook, a gorgeous color, and a celebration of everything an orange can be!

In an effort to spring my fruitcakes from their Holiday mental prison, I offer my new Summer Fruitcake. This cake is much like the Winter Fruitcake, but with a few ingredient substitutions that give it a tropical turn. Dried pineapple and mango join the cherries and nectarines, all plumped in papaya and guava nectar. Candied yuzu peel(Japanese lime) and Celebes papeda (a kind of pommelo) join those of Meyer lemon, Rangpur lime and blood orange.  

The batter is similar to the White Fruitcake, but with papaya and guava nectar instead of orange juice, and lightly scented with cardamom, cinnamon and vanilla. The soaking cognac is infused with the rare, fragrant Shekwasha citrus peel. Topped with a beautiful spring flower, sure to banish all thoughts of cedar boughs and holly!  A perfect Mother's Day gift.