Yes, these were the words that I was woken up by my husband with yesterday. With huge excitement as – looking at the rainy forecast – Wednesday had been chosen as the day we would together (joy!) make marmelade for the first time chez nous.
I started badly, having made the rookie error of buying 3 boxes of the special Seville oranges, as they were on a 3 for 2 at Waitrose. A foolish move, as it transpired that we not only had to go through the incredibly lengthy process once, but twice in the same day, to use up all the fruit. Note to self – do not be swayed by special offers next year!
Mr H got out his new silver toy – a Maslin pan – perfect for making marmalade, less perfect for being stored for the next 51 weeks of the year as its massive. Hey ho.
And then we were off – 12 hours of orange (and lemons – who knew?) prep – all according to the cooking queen that is Delia. With a bit of Ross thrown in, who makes marmalade with J every year and is therefore the oranges oracle.
Mr H all very excited at the prospect – he is a big marmalade fan. Me slightly less so as I don't really like it. The orange volcano does however make the house smell lovely for the day so there are definitely some upsides..
Much fun was however had with the decades-old orange slicer – borrowed from the Capons – and which actually has 'The Magic Marmalade Cutter' printed down its side, just in case you can't work out what it's for. Shove de-pithed and squeezed quartered oranges up its bum, work the lever back and forth at a rate of knows and – bingo – cue plates of shredded orangery and lemonery, much more easily than trying to cut it all by hand.
Then its into hours of heating, adding more sugar than you can possibly believe, squeezing and scraping a muslin bag full of pith and pips to generate the pectin to set the marmalade (this is clearly imprinted on my brain after yesterday's efforts!) and you eventually go from the light orange of picture 1 to the golden glue of picture 2 below.
The last step is to keep testing the magic gloop – putting spoonfuls onto a freezer-chilled plate until it feels it has a skin on it, when poked with a clean finger.
I'm not sure either of us was expecting the quantity we ended up with… one posh batch and one in all the random jars we could muster. Anyone for marmalade?
Paddington would hopefully be a very proud bear. x