All my extended family love marmalade, so each year I make a batch to give away as Christmas Pressies. The season for Seville oranges is short, with fruit appearing in the supermarkets sometime in December or early January, and finishing in February, making it touch and go whether you’ll even find it in the shops before Christmas. The way I get around this is using frozen fruit. I am sure there are people who will throw up their hands in horror at the thought of marmalade made with fruit that has languished in the bottom of my extremely crammed freezer for the first ten months of the year, but for me, it is the perfect solution.

Firstly, it means that the fruit is frozen in optimum condition (rather than sitting in the fridge for weeks waiting for me to find a moment of domestic goddess inspiration) Secondly, however green and ugly looking the fruit is when it goes into said freezer, it always seems to come out the most beautiful, even orange colour, and finally It allows me to take advantage of any price reductions I might spot while doing my weekly shop. The method I now always use for making my marmalade involves cooking the fruit whole (Mary Berry’s recipe from ‘The Aga Book’), and so I simply throw the frozen fruit straight in the pan.

For this recipe you will need:

  • 1kg Seville Oranges, fresh or frozen
  • 1 Lemon
  • 2kg White Sugar
  • 1350mls Water

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