Category Archives: Marmalade/preserving

An early season…

Every year I enjoy making Geoff his supply of Marmalade for the year.

IMG_1157This year I thought it was going to be a struggle, because between now and April 8th Geoff will only be in Cambridge for 1 day and the last thing I wanted to be doing on that day was making Marmalade.

Lucky for me or maybe lucky for Geoff, Seville Oranges are having a very early season, as we found out when we accidentally came across some in the Radmore Farm Shop.

So on Monday I spent a very happy 5 hours making 28 Jars of Marmalade.

It tastes so good that I may attempt to make another batch, later in the month, here at home on my electric hob, which should be very interesting…..

Labour of Love ..

February means marmalade making time and luckily for me Geoff loves marmalade 🙂

I struggled to get the Seville oranges this year,but eventually I found some at the Knights hill farm shop and bought the last 10lb they had in the shop.

While Geoff squeezed the 6lb of oranges and took the pips out I sliced the peel, which was then simmered for a couple of hours with the orange juice ,12 pints of water and the pips tied in a muslin bag.

The start

Once the peel was soft and the liquid reduced by about half, 12lb of preserving sugar was added then boiled for about half an hour, stirring all the time, till setting point was reached.

the middle

The whole process took 5 hours and we now have 26 jars of marmalade, the cost was approximately £17 so around 66p a jar, so well worth making…..

the end

If more Oranges can be found I hope to repeat the whole process again next weekend then Geoff will be set for the year 🙂