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Orange and Apricot Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from apricots and oranges stewed with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 703 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Orange and Apricot Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Soak apricots overnight in enough water to cover them.

  2. Stew apricots very slowly until tender, then mash them.

  3. Cut oranges into small pieces and add to the mashed apricots.

Make the marmalade

  1. Measure the mixture and add an equal amount of sugar.

  2. Stew all together slowly until it thickens.

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. Apricot + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. 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

Evaporated apricots
Provide the main fruit body and natural pectin that helps the marmalade set as it cooks.
Oranges
Add acidity and bitter aroma that balance the sweetness and brighten the flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as it cooks down, helps thicken the mixture into a spread.

The step that matters

Stew all together slowly until it thickens. Cooking slowly over gentle heat lets the mixture reduce and thicken evenly without scorching the sugar. Pectin in the fruit and sugar concentration together set the marmalade as water evaporates.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, sugar. 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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