Windfall marmalade

If you don’t have a jelly bag, you can use a sheet of muslin, tied up with string.

Ingredients

  • 2 grapefruit
  • 500g/1lb 2oz windfall apples (cooking or dessert), peeled, cored, and sliced (keep the peel and cores)
  • 1.5 litres/3 pints water
  • 1.1kg/2lb 6oz granulated sugar

Method

  1. Using a potato peeler, pare the peel from the grapefruit and shred it finely into short strips. Cut the fruit away from the pith. Put the pith into a jelly bag. Chop the flesh into small pieces, removing any membranes as you go to prevent them persisting as lumps in the finished marmalade.
  2. Add the apple peel and cores to the jelly bag. Put the apple slices, shredded grapefruit peel and the grapefruit flesh into a pan.
  3. Tie up the jelly bag and add to the pan with the water.
  4. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 2 hours until the peel is soft and the contents reduced by about half.
  5. Wearing rubber gloves to protect your hands, remove the jelly bag from the pan and squeeze as much liquid as possible back into the pan. Discard the contents of the jelly bag.
  6. Add the sugar to the pan and stir until it is dissolved, then bring the marmalade to the boil. Boil rapidly until the setting point is reached.
  7. Remove the pan from the heat and leave for 10 mins to ensure that the peel is well-distributed across the marmalade. Stir the marmalade and pot into warm, sterilized jars.