Keeping warm, making marmalade and my next Ravelry project...

Its been a very cold week and on Monday public transport had stopped to our village and it was blizzarding outside - so what do I do? Make marmalade - it had been pencilled in for this week anyway!
We use lots of jam and marmalade in our household and its a good cost cutting exercise as well.  I allways use Claire MacDonalds recipe from her second seasonal cooking book - cant do a link here as I dont think it is still in print - its a brilliant recipe that doesn't involve loads of cutting and chopping.  Here's the image from the very well thumbed book.....

And here is how to make it -
1 1/2 lb of Seville Oranges
1 1/2 lb mixed cirus fruit - grapefruit, satsumas, oranges.

I put these into a slow cooker, cover them with water and leave on 'low' overnight.  You get up to a gorgeous smell of oranges next day.....but you could put them in a pan on the hob for a slow simmer of 3 hours....

Take the fruit out, chop it in half and remove the pips from the fruit.

 Put the pips into a small pan with 1/2 pint of water and bring to a simmer on the hob for 30 mins...

While that's happening put the remaining fruit into a food processor and process - as much or as little as you require.  My 'other half' does not like chunky marmalade so I pretty much puree it....

like this....

After the 30 mins strain the juice from the pips and put it, plus the fruit pulp and the cooking juice into the jam pan...

Now add your granulated sugar - 6lb in this case

Start prepping your jars - you'll need 12 for this - clean them, dry them, and then place them in the oven at 100 degrees (low) until ready for the marmalade....

Start on a low setting and very gently melt your sugar: do not rush this process.  Give it a stir to see if the sugar has melted - there should be no granules on the spoon - and then crank the heat up and boil furiously......and put a saucer in the fridge...

They say to check after 10 mins to see if it sets but I generally give it a good 20mins....then I put a teaspoon of it on the chilled saucer, leave it to cool and then put a spoon through it.  If the mixture separates and stays there its nearly ready, if it forms a skin and the marmalade wrinkles it is ready.  I generally find that it has a syrupy consistency in the pan and the liquid has been reduced - but be careful as it can easily burn: and it can burn you!  

Using a ladle I now decant the marmalade into a jug - as it is easier to pour, I take the jars out of the oven and pour in the marmalade while both the jars and marmalade are hot.  

I would normally top with a circle of greaseproof paper and then put the lids on - but I didn't have any paper: so it was lids straight on.....and that's the marmalade!

So all this cold weather has resulted in plenty of knitting time and I've been working on my next Ravelry project here's a peep and it will be on my next blog.....keep warm everybody!