Why it works: Orange and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Florida Orange Wine
about 10 gallons of wineIngredients
Directions
Prepare the juice
Wipe the oranges with a wet cloth and peel off the yellow rind very thin.
Squeeze the oranges and strain the juice through a fine sieve.
Measure the juice and for each gallon, combine 3 pounds of sugar, the crushed white and shell of 1 egg, and ⅓ gallon of cold water in a pot.
Make the syrup
Heat the mixture, stirring every 2 minutes until the egg begins to harden.
Boil the syrup until it looks clear under the froth of egg.
Strain the syrup and pour it over the orange rind; let it stand overnight.
The next day, add the orange juice and let it stand overnight again.
Strain it a second time and transfer to a tight cask.
Ferment and age
Add a small cake of compressed yeast for about 10 gallons of wine.
Leave the bung out of the cask until fermentation ceases; you will hear hissing during fermentation.
Once fermentation stops, close the cask with the bung and let the wine stand for about 9 months before bottling.
After bottling, wait 3 months before using. Optionally, add a glass of brandy to each gallon after fermentation.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,696 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides the sweetness and alcohol in the finished wine.
- Egg white and shell
- Clarifies the syrup, as the coagulating egg lifts impurities into the froth that is skimmed off.
- Oranges
- Provide the juice and aromatic oil from the rind, giving the wine its citrus flavour and acidity.
- Compressed yeast
- Converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
The step that matters
Boil the syrup until clear under the froth. Heating coagulates the egg, which carries suspended impurities up into the froth. Boiling only until it looks clear removes them; overheating can darken the syrup and affect flavour.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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