Mumsnet Talk

I thought not but the recipe I've just found says to use it (despite having lemons in recipe) and so have had a nervous moment. What do you think?

No, it's ok - you don't need it as long as you've got the lemon/used Seville oranges. Ordinary granulated is fine.

Monster marmelade batch cooling in the kitchen as I type!

Thanks monkey! Now-what constitutes a monster batch? Just deciding whether to do mine in one very big one or two smaller? Might cook all the oranges and lemons together and then divide for the sugar bit-gives me a back up plan in case one batch goes wrong-ever confident.

I now cook my oranges in the pressure cooker before starting... bit of a cheat but it does speed the process up!

Ooh-good idea. Reasons why I need a pressure cooker...

This is probably too late Mole but I would do two smaller batches depending on your hob, the reason being that if you have a big pan and an ordinary domestic hob the marmelade might not be able to reach the 104 degrees it needs to reach a set. If you have an aga you'd probably be ok I should think.

I did Delia's Dark Chunky marmelade and am so pleased with it, hope yours came out well. Nobody I know likes dark marmelade except DH so we get to scoff it all ourselves too!

Luckily I couldn't face cutting up the oranges today or last night! Not do luckily I kept reading conflicting methods including leaving it all overnight and shaving off the skin with a potato peeler! Going to do the equivalent of putting fingers in ears and saying "la la la" and stick with delia ;-) thanks for the tips, monkey.