Why it works: Sugar and orange 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 ↓
Candied Orange Peel
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Make the syrup
Bring ½ cup water to a boil.
Add 1 cup sugar and cook until it threads.
Candy the peel
Cut the yellow part of the orange peels into thin strips.
Boil the strips in the syrup for 5 minutes or until translucent.
Drain the strips and coat them with sugar.
Dry
Dry the sugared strips in a 300°F (150°C) oven.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and orange 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
- Sweetens the peel and, as it soaks in and sets, helps preserve and firm it.
- Water
- Dissolves the sugar into a syrup that the peel can cook in.
- Orange peels
- Supply the main flavor and become tender and translucent as they cook in the syrup.
The step that matters
Boil the strips until translucent. The peel must cook long enough for the sugar syrup to penetrate the strips. Stopping too early leaves them tough and opaque, while the sugar needs to be absorbed for the peel to stay tender and candied.
“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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