A tried and Tested Marmalade Recipe.

This is the recipe I've been using for decades- so old that it's still in imperial- like my kitchen scales.

2lb Seville oranges
2 lemons
4 pints water
4lb sugar

Wash the oranges and lemons. Put whole fruit and water into a jam/ preserving pan and cover with a lid or tin foil. Bring to the boil, then simmer gently for about an hour and a half until the fruit is soft.

Remove fruit from pan and place in a bowl. Retain the water / juice in the pan. Using a sharp kitchen knife and a fork to hold the fruit, slice the peel into desired thickness. I tend to do this by quartering each fruit, then scraping out the flesh, pips and pith. Put the pips aside to use later. We like the peel very fine "shred"- which makes the cutting process long and tedious- but I make this a little easier by using the fork to hold several pieces of peel together, then slicing through all of these at the same time.

Do NOT discard the pith as this gives the characteristic bitterness. Once all the pips have been assembled, put them all back into the retained water in the pan and boil for ten minutes (this is important in helping the marmalade set as you are harvesting pectin from the pips) Remove the pips from the water, then return the cut fruit back into this water. Bring to the boil, then add the sugar, stirring over a gentle heat until the sugar is all dissolved- making sure you don't leave any sugar crystals on the sides of the pan.

 Then boil rapidly- stirring only if it looks like it might burn- for about 30 mins or until the setting point of approx 220 F is reached. When set a small amount on a cold saucer will wrinkle when allowed to cool and pushed with finger.  

Put into clean, jars that have been preheated in a warm oven. I usually stand these on a wooden board covered in clean paper to make catching spills easier and clearing up less of a sticky nightmare! Use a ladle to fill jars. Cover with waxed discs of paper and put lids onto jars while still hot for a good seal.

This makes about 10 jars- depending on the size obviously!