Last year, Dave won a raffle at his old work and ended up bringing home a bottle of Marks and Spencer’s mulled cider. It was delicious: fruity, spicy, well-rounded and oh so drinkable. Every night for a week, I’d pour some into a pot and heat it up as a warmer before bed.

This year, after remarking that I’d love to find some more of it for this winter, Dave suggested I make my own!  And after reading several variations online, I decided to experiment and put my own batch together.  Here’s how to do it.

Ingredients:

• 2L of non-carbonated cider – I used Tesco’s Finest Oak Mature Still Cider (£1.69 for 500ml!)
• 3 Oranges
• 6 Cloves
• 2-3 Cinnamon sticks
• 6 Allspice berries
• 2 or 3 Tablespoons of white sugar (to taste)

1. Grate the zest of one of the oranges into a saucepan and squeeze the juice into the pan.
2. Stick the three cloves into each of the remaining oranges and add to the pan.
3. Add the cinnamon sticks and allspice berries (if you don’t have the berries, I found a teaspoon of ground allspice added something to the flavour) to the pan and pour in the cider.
4. Simmer the mixture on a relatively low heat for 30 minutes – do NOT let it boil.  (Side note: I forgot about mine completely and couldn’t hear the oven timer, so I simmered mine for about 45-50 minutes and it didn’t ruin it, I was just left with a smaller amount).
5. Add the sugar to taste, stir to ensure that it dissolves into the cider.
6. Pour through a sieve into a large bowl to filter out any broken pieces of the cinnamon sticks, or any particularly large pieces of rind.
7. Pour into mugs and enjoy!

I kept the rest of ours in a wee plastic jug in the fridge and heated a mug of it up each night (tip for amount: pour into mug first, then pour into pan! I used to heat up too little of it when pouring directly into the pan).  Such a nice winter warmer.

Also, if you’re not a drinker, you can replace the cider with fresh apple juice – but if you do this you probably won’t need to add much (if any) sugar.

Enjoy!

And I promise this won’t become a recipes blog – I love them, but I’m not a great cook and I’m as amazed as you that I have two of these posts in a row…