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Dessert

Orange Jam

A jam made from oranges and sugar, cooked until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 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 ↓

Orange Jam

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Take any quantity of oranges, preferably small ones known as 'culls'.

  2. Peel and cut the oranges.

  3. Weigh the same amount of sugar as the weight of the prepared oranges.

Cook and jar

  1. Combine the oranges and sugar in a pot.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the mixture thickens into jam.

  3. Pour into sterilized jars and seal.

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

Oranges
Provide the fruit, pectin and bitter flavour that give the jam its body and character.
Sugar
Sweetens the jam and, as it cooks down, helps it thicken and keeps it preserved.

The step that matters

Cooking until the jam thickens. Stirring often over medium heat keeps the sugar and fruit from scorching on the bottom of the pot. Thickening happens as water evaporates and the sugar and fruit pectin set, so stopping too early leaves a runny jam.

“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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