Today I made marmalade.

At 2pm today I decided to make marmalade. At 3pm I returned from the shops with a big bag of Sicilian oranges (which, very happily, turned out to be blood oranges), two lemons and two limes (exotic) and 1kg of preserving sugar. At 3.15pm I searched the Internet for marmalade recipes. At 3.30pm I called my Mother.

The general consensus from my initial search was that I needed to juice and finely slice the fruit, reserve the pulp and pips in a small muslin bag, simmer, cool, squeeze, soak, leave overnight, add sugar, boil, check temperature, wrinkle test, sterilise, jar. AH!

Yeah. So I called Mum who I have watched make jams, chutneys and marmalade for years. In an afternoon. With ease.

Mum also advised the whole pulp/pip/muslin bag malarkey (it's all about the pectin) but as I don't own any muslin and Mum told me not to use tights and I couldn't bring myself to cut up a pillowcase I just juiced the fruit straight into the pan. Pulp, pips and all.

I prepared myself for cloudy marmalade. Juicing done I sliced the fruit as finely I could with my blunt knife, put it in the pan and added a few litres of water. This was simmered (with regular stirring) for about 2 hrs until it had reduced by half.

I added 1kg of preserving sugar then realised it probably wasn't enough and added about 300g of caster sugar. Meanwhile I put a plate in the freezer. Yes. A plate in the freezer.

The marmalade was boiled for 15mins then the plate came out the freezer and I put small spoon of the liquid on it. After a minute it did not wrinkle when pushed so I repeated the boil, test, boil, test until it wrinkled. Wrinkles in this case are good! It means it will (should) set in the jar.

I sterilised the jars with boiling water, filled them, left them to cool a little then sealed the jars with sterilised lids. Fingers crossed for no mould.

Over four hours later. Cloudy, chunky, possibly too thick marmalade (with pips) of my very own. First marmalade ever. Looking forward to toast. Thanks Mum.