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Spread the news! Pupils win international marmalade awards…

Talented young cooks at Central Primary School are celebrating after scooping two international awards for their marmalade.

The nine Year 5 pupils were awarded a Silver and a Bronze in the Dalemain World Marmalade Awards for their ‘Seville and Lime’ and ‘Winter Magic’ recipes.

Teacher Ruth Cook explained: “I first heard about the awards many years ago through my parents and my dad has passed on his love of making the golden stuff to me.

“That's when I thought I would try to follow in his footsteps and show the children how marmalade is made from scratch and have a go at entering.

“Through the support of my colleague Brodwyn Birchall, we worked with a group of nine Year 5 pupils. They came up with their own recipes using the citrus fruits available and we spent a couple of very busy hours squeezing, chopping, peeling and dicing the fruit until we eventually had enough to make 13 jars.

“We sent two different jars over to the Awards in Cumbria back in January and recently received word that we had been awarded a Bronze and a Silver. The Silver scored maximum marks for flavour and our feedback was ‘What a delicious Marmalade! Great flavour and colour’.”

Dalemain World Marmalade Awards started in 2005 with an idea to celebrate community and educate through cooking, championing marmalade makers and raising money for charity. Nearly 20 years later there are 100 volunteers who run the competition to find the best marmalade in the world.

With support from Rathbones, Fortnum & Mason, Westmorland Family and Lycetts, Dalemain has raised over a quarter of a million pounds for charity and had thousands upon thousands of entries posted to them in Cumbria.

The culmination of the annual awards sees marmalade jars spill out of every part of the house while on display for a festival held every April at Dalemain Mansion in Cumbria, a family home and farming estate.

At the festival the new winner is announced, there are a range of talks and marmalade panels and tasting of marmalades from around the world.

Ruth added: “The overall winner in the children's category was a school in Taiwan, reflecting the international scale of the competition. So, this gives us something to aim for next year when we will strive for gold!”