Traditional Marmalade

Jennifer Walsh

Sep 30

3 min read

A glimpse into the history behind marmalade...

When I started making my own orange marmalade, I became curious about where it came from. Marmalade has a much older history, but orange marmalade became particularly associated with Dundee, Scotland, and Scottish confectioner Janet Keiller. Janet wasn't simply a home cook who stumbled across marmalade; she was an experienced confectioner and shopkeeper, making and selling cakes, sweets, jams, jellies and preserves from the family's shop in Seagate. The famous story says she made marmalade from a bargain consignment of bitter Seville oranges, although that story is better regarded as Dundee folklore than established fact, orange marmalade already existed. What the Keiller family did was help develop and commercially popularise the distinctive peel-filled Dundee marmalade that became famous far beyond Scotland. I certainly can't claim my recipe is a traditional Dundee marmalade; mine has developed through my own trial and error, with much less sugar because I wanted the oranges themselves to remain the star. That's probably my favourite part of cooking from scratch, one recipe can send you down an entirely unexpected path. I started out wanting to learn how to make orange marmalade, and somehow ended up in an eighteenth-century confectionery shop in Dundee, learning about a Scottish woman named Janet Keiller, that's probably my favourite part of cooking from scratch, one single recipe can send you down an entirely unexpected path. I started out simply wanting to learn how to make marmalade and somehow found myself in a history lesson about a Scottish confectioner named Janet Keiller. I love that. It's one of the reasons I'm so drawn to learning old-school cooking methods and traditional recipes, there's often a story, a person or a piece of history waiting behind the food we make.

A friendly reminder to sterilise your jars and lids before you begin

Wash your jars and lids thoroughly in hot, soapy water and rinse well. Place the clean jars in a cold oven, heat to 120°C, and leave them for around 30 minutes. Keep them warm until your marmalade is ready pouring hot marmalade into cold glass can cause the jars to crack.

For the lids, after washing them with warm soapy water, boil them for ten minutes, then leave them to air dry on a cotton towel.

Tip: Time this towards the end of your marmalade cooking so your jars are still warm when you’re ready to fill them.

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place your jar lids in boiling water for ten minutes, then set them to air dry on a cotton towel

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When placing your jars on a tray, ensure they're not touching, Place them in the oven before the oven heats up (don't preheat your oven) leave them for 30 minutes, them set them on a cotton tea towel, not touching.