So after not much persuasion, I embarked recently on a new quest. Making marmalade. I have always enjoyed the bitter sweet taste of good marmalade. Not the cheap supermarket versions, I am a sucker for farmers markets and home made produce. I always thought marmalade would be beyond my “talents”, but it is surprisingly simple. Though I do now realise, success in marmalade is in the preparation, and there is a lot of preparation.

I took to the Muddy Kitchen Floor kitchen with my large pot, a huge amount of Seville oranges, a few lemons, and my iBook “First Preserves – Marmalade” by Vivian Lloyd. (Download it. It’s great).

After much juicing and slicing of the peel, which I found very soothing and almost mediative, it was time to soak the peel overnight.

The following day, I strained the muslin, added the sugar and set about getting a rolling boil. For those who have said a watched pot never boils have obviously never made marmalade, nor witnessed the wonder and beauty of watching a pan full of juice, water, sugar and peel come to the boil. For those of you wondering what I am blabbing about, take a look at my twitter feed

Well, after roughly 10 minutes of boiling, and enormous dexterity of filling jars, I had my first batch of marmalade. I don’t think the peel was very evenly distributed, but it tasted bitter sweet, and is perfect on thick white toast with lots of melting salted butter.

My only sadness is I can’t share this with my nan, who loved marmalade on toast and would have loved getting in a sticky mess and demanding a wet cloth to wipe her hands. So nan, this first batch of Muddy Kitchen Floor Seville Orange Marmalade 2013 is dedicated to you.