Making Marmalade

I have never done this before, but since my foray into jam making last summer was relatively successful I thought I'd give it a go. Now I think we are coming to the end of the Seville Orange season, so you'll have to grab some soon if you want to get cracking!

I took the recipe from the Guardian Gardening Blog, reproduced here, with some slight alteration to suit my style:

SEVILLE MARMALADE
(makes 2kg)
1 kg Seville oranges
1 lemon
1.5 kg sugar
1.25 litres water

Wash the whole fruits and place in a heavy lidded casserole or saucepan that will fit in the oven (with lid). Add water and bring to simmer. Cover before placing in a 180 C, Mk4 oven. Poach the fruit for two-and-a-half to three hours, by which time the skins will be softened.

Using a spoon, lift the fruit out of the liquid into a colander over a bowl and leave to drain. When the fruit is cooled, cut each in half and scoop out the insides with a spoon to leave just the peel, placing all the flesh, pith and pips in a muslin bag or a large piece of muslin over a bowl which you can gather into a bag. Collect all the juice as you go and add it to the poaching liquid.

 Measure the poaching liquid and make up to 1 litre with water if needs be. Place the muslin bag (or jaycloth in my instance!!)  in a pan with the poaching liquid and bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Leave till cool enough to handle then squeeze the bag to get as much of the liquid as possible from the pulp. Discard the bag and its contents.

 Chop the peel into thin strips and add to the preserving liquid. Add the sugar and stir over a low heat until the sugar is completely dissolved and the liquid is clear. Turn up the heat and bring to a rolling boil until it reaches setting point. (Setting point is when a dollop of the syrup on a cold plate, readily forms a skin when you push your finger across the surface. This takes me around 20 to 30 minutes.)

 Turn off the heat and leave to stand for 15 minutes then stir to distribute the peel. Pour into hot, clean sterilised jars, put waxed paper circles wax side down on each one and seal immediately.

I have sent my husband to buy some fluffy white bread so I can test it properly, but on first inspection, it's really rather good! I only got 5 jars out of this recipe which doesn't seem like much though.