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Orange Syrup with Benzoate

A syrup made from orange juice and rind, sweetened with sugar, preserved with benzoate, and acidified with citric acid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Orange Syrup with Benzoate

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice and rind

  1. Peel the oranges and remove as much of the white skin as possible.

  2. Blanch the rind for 10 minutes, then chop it finely.

  3. Press all the juice out of the oranges and filter it.

  4. Combine the juice and rind in a container, adding 5 pounds of sugar per gallon.

  5. Let the mixture macerate for 2 to 3 days, avoiding fermentation.

  6. Filter the syrup through a drip trough.

Make the syrup

  1. In a kettle, add 8 pounds of sugar for each gallon of syrup and bring to a boil, skimming off any heavy matter.

  2. Add 1 ounce of benzoate of soda for every 4 gallons of juice.

  3. Cook until it reaches 30 degrees on a Beaume's saccharometer.

  4. While hot, add 1 ounce of liquid citric acid for each gallon of syrup.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Orange + syruptop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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
Supply the juice and aromatic oil from the peel that flavour the syrup.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, at high concentration, helps preserve it.
Benzoate of soda
Acts as a preservative that inhibits mould and fermentation in the juice.
Liquid citric acid
Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness of the finished syrup.

The step that matters

Maceration without fermentation. Sugar draws water out of the fruit and the mixture can ferment if left too long or too warm. Keeping the 2 to 3 day maceration controlled, with the preservative added at the right stage, protects flavour and keeps the syrup stable.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. 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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