Marmalade

Did loads today, but as I'm backblipping this, I can't remember much of what actually happened. If the contents of my camera memory card are anything to go by, I spent the whole day making marmalade.

So, here's a guide to the marmalade making:

Top row: Oranges and lemons; the sliced fruit ready to be cooked (that slicing takes forever, but everyone I give marmalade to seems to like the fine shred stuff); the bag of pips, membrane, etc that puts the pectin in to set the marmalade; the obscene amount of sugar needed....

Bottom row: bubbling away; testing for set; resting; ta-da!

Of course the last shot should have been the jars all wiped clean and labelled, but it was late. I've made marmalade from the same recipe for the last 4 years, and it has always worked marvellously. Now, however, I'm totally paranoid to change anything in case it doesn't work. Someone told me that it's fine, for example, to shred the fruit straight after squeezing the juice out - that the membranes and remaining flesh just dissolve on cooking... Not prepared to risk that yet! And I'm sure there's some kind of food processor attachment that would take the pain out of the hours of patient shredding.

Ah well. That's one lot made. Two more to go....