We have a lovely orange tree in the garden. Every year it is covered in orange delights. The fruit to be honest are more like mandarins, but oh boy are they sour!
This year even the monkeys seemed to shun them for weeks after they appeared!
Eventually they started eating them and the ground was laden with discarded peels.
Anyway, because there is so much emphasis on ‘growing your own’ these days, I decided to bite the bullet and make something of them.
We picked a bowlful and I washed them.
I then halved them and after opening the first one found they were full of pips.
Undeterred, I cut them all in half and boiled them in enough water to cover them.
After the mixture had cooled, I set about taking out all the peels and put them to one side.
Then I put the remaining mixture through a colander and was left with the pips that I put into a material bag and tied it up with string.
I finely chopped the skins, then put them, the mixture and at least 4 cups of white sugar back into the saucepan with the bag of pips.
I boiled it, then let it simmer for a couple of hours.
it still didn’t gel properly on a cold plate, and when I tasted it it was just too sour, so i put a couple more cups of sugar in and simmered it to melt into the marmalade.
Meanwhile I sterilised the jars with boiling water, took out the bag of pips, and transferred to marmalade into them.
I have to mention here that the jars are also recycled from one of our favourite spreads!!
After cooling we tasted it – talk about bittersweet !! At least it will last a long time as a sliver has so much taste!
