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Scotch Orange Marmalade

A marmalade made from Seville oranges, sugar, and water, simmered until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scotch Orange Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peel

  1. Thinly cut off the rind of the Seville oranges.

  2. Shred the rind finely.

  3. Place the shreds in a bag and boil the bagged shreds for 2 hours.

Prepare the pulp

  1. Remove the white outer skin from the oranges.

  2. Cut the oranges in half and remove all seeds.

  3. Put the pulp and juice into a basin.

  4. Strain the water from boiling the peels and add it to the pulp and juice.

Make the marmalade

  1. For every pound of fruit, add 1½ pounds of finely beaten loaf sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture together for 30 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Seville oranges
Provide pectin, acidity and bitter aroma from the peel, which help the marmalade set.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, with pectin and acid, helps it gel as it boils.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture together for 30 minutes. Pectin, sugar and acid only form a firm gel once enough water has evaporated and the sugar concentration is high. Boiling too briefly can leave the marmalade runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dark.

“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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