A very fitting title on the eve of Wimbledon dont you think!

I am not talking about tennis, but rather the dark arts of preserve making. With Helen out of action in the production department she has been tutoring her side kick (me) and I have been busy building up the stock ready for the run of local events which I will be attending later in the summer.

In the main my output has been of a good quality, passing the Wild Side seal of approval and being allowed onto the store room shelves. Such has been my success that I started to get a teeny bit cocky and wondered what all the fuss was about. Follow the rules (to the letter) and a high quality end result will roll off the end of the production line. Pride, as we all know, comes defore a fall.

The thing is that I have been preserve making using a paint by numbers aproach - and got lucky. 

As well as making preserves from fresh ingredients we also have three freezers rammed with nature's bounty, and our aim at this time of year is to empty them as far as possible, ready for this year's harvest. And therein lay the seeds of my humbling. You see, the freezing process reduced the efficacy of the pectin, which is the substance needed to make the jam set. 

This wasn't a problen for the Sloe Jelly, which included one Kg of fresh apples for every Kg of frozen sloes, but it was a problem for the Seville based marmalades which relies entirely on the pectin in the frozen fruit to give it the soft jelly like consistency.

My plan was to use up the last of the Sevilles which were lurking on the bottom draw like so many frost covered baseballs. They were duly defrosted, halves, juiced, de pithed and finely sliced, just like usual.

The objective was to make three batches of Dark Seville Marmalade, a recipie containing a spoonful of black treacle which was a firm favourite of Sir Edmund Hilary on his Everst expeditions. This recipie for a dark marmalade was a good idea as frozen fruit tend to result in a darker marmalade in any case.

The end result from following the timing rules was frustration, and three rows of orange liquid with peel floating about in every jar.

I left it all a day and then attempted a rescue exercise with mixed results.

The contents were returned to the heat and given another spell on the rolling boil. The first batch seemed to firm up after six minutes in the pan and placed in fresh jars - the contents having reduced from 11 to 8 jars. The marmalade was a shade darker, but the taste was still excellent and a light set was achieved.

Emboldened by this success I tackled batch two but this time getting a set was as elusive as a wild card at Wimbledon. Seven minutes passed, then ten and out to thirteen. By that time I tasted the marmalade and discovered I had created burnt caramel - no good and fit only for the drain.

And batch three? I am sitting looking at nine jars which show some signs of setting but the jury is well and truly out. We will test the set in the morning and see if it passes muster.

I now realise that there is a bit more to this jam making malarkey that I realised. Finding the setting point is more an art than a science, especially with frozen ingedients. I have also realised that sometimes things just dont work - it happens and not to beat myself up about the odd failed batch.