marmalady

There seems to be a fad for writing about your breakfast round these parts. Well, as one Julias' Daughter hopefully re-considers her own self-imposed ban, I feel the mantle falls to me to talk about that oh-so-most-important meal of the day. 


So - what does a night owl eat for breakfast? Well, that all kinda depends what day of the week we're talking about and whether I'm having to rise and shine and get my ass out the house to meet some type of rotational requirement. I hate to admit it but sometimes, just sometimes I have to leave the house without (duh, duh, DUH!). Like this Sunday morning, when I heated up the oats and milk I'd left soaking in the microwave overnight (how very organised of me) and then had no time to eat my too-hot porridge. For shame. Well, the only thing I can say is at least with porridge you can reheat it the next day (which I did) that is so long as you don't make it to the consistency of wet concrete (which I didn't). My top porridge toppers at the moment (incase you are not yet asleep) are raisins and a wee bit of sugar (golden granulated) or my Winter Fruit Compote - mmm PRUNES! I am, as yet, managing to resist double cream. No, don't mention it (double cream) - I said DON'T MENTION IT!


Any hows - what I was really wanting to tell y'all about were the exciting results of my first venture into the land of marmalade. I come from a long line of Marmaladies (actually, that may be a short line) but anyways, I had never been schooled in the technical side. My Ma's preference was for the pre-sliced MAMADE tins (medium cut) whereas my Granny's speciality has a rather different consistency: very soft-set and rather lemony, I do believe she told me that my Granda used to pass all the fruit peel through a table-mounted hand-cranked mincer!


Well, I just followed Mrs Corbin's instruction to the letter: steeping my finely hand sliced peel in water overnight and boiling and reducing the next day. I had to take a break in my preservings (to hop of to a lecture, fancy!) and returned to my pan the next day, to no ill effect. The secret of Mrs Corbin's success, I reckon, is her use of demerara sugar. It adds a wonderful, golden syrupy richness which is quite extraordinarily unlike any other marmalade I have known.


It took me a lot less time to find the setting point than it did for my plum jam (did I tell you about my plum jam?) and for once I actually had MORE preserve than I expected! Lucky old me. So much in fact that I had to grab my marmalade pot out of the cupboard to fill. It's a lovely T.G. Green number which was part of a 'breakfast set' given as a wedding gift to my Ma and Pa. I love the colour. The plate is T.G. Green too, from a charity shop and probably a second - but you can't see the wee blip in the glaze once you've got a wholemeal seeded muffin on there! 


Than reminds me, somewhere I have a recipe for marmalade cake...