SUCCESS!

Well it's official. I'll be making marmalade in the slow cooker from now on! It was BEAUTIFUL!!!
As I said yesterday I'm the only one who eats it here but Mark wanted to try it this morning. So I made us a nice hot coffee and a couple of slices of toast each. I loved it but didn't think Mark would think much of it as he's never been a fan; but he raved about it. Now I did check his expression whilst he was chewing just to be sure, but no - he really did look like he was enjoying it. :)

It's just the basic recipe but for anyone who wants to try it .............. I used 5 oranges and one lemon, 4 cups of sugar (yes I know its scary but its just standard for jams; lashings of the sweet stuff!). I washed the fruit well then quartered it, got rid of the seeds and put it through the food processor until it was well and truly whizzed up. Tossed it into the slow cooker with the sugar and cooked on low for an hour then high for approx.3 hours. I also added 25gms of Jamsetta but only because I like a firmer marmalade - you can leave it out and it should jelly up quite nicely. This made around 1.7 kg and fitted into 5 sort of medium jars nicely.

I was talking on the phone to my sister and she was saying how much she likes marmalade so I'll take some for her to try when we go on our trip. We both love ginger marmalade too so I might give that a go before we head up her way. She lives on the north coast near the ocean; a beautiful area.

I'm going to look into buying stevia in bulk as it's a little dear in supermarkets and a bit of a pain that the largest container I've seen is 200gms. For those who don't know its a natural alternative to sugar. We use a brand called Natvia which we both like but I haven't been able to source it in large quantities. I use it already to cook with but really do need to have a lot more on hand than I have at the moment. If anyone has bought it in bulk could you leave the details in the comments?

I read this quote in the book I mentioned a few days back..............
"In bread making, as in baseball, there is nothing like a good batter in the hour of knead."


................."groan" ...............good grief there were some bad jokes way back then too!