Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Orange Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Make a clarified syrup with the loaf sugar, achieving 32 degrees strength.
Rub the orange zest on pieces of loaf sugar, then scrape it off and steep in the syrup for 6 hours.
Flavour and bottle
Add the strained orange juice and lemon juice to the syrup and stir well.
Fill pint bottles with the syrup, cork them, and secure with wire or string.
Process and cool
Place the bottles in cold water and bring to a gentle boil for 6 minutes.
Allow the bottles to cool completely.
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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Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Loaf sugar
- Provides sweetness and the body of the syrup, and preserves it when concentrated.
- Orange zest
- Adds aromatic oils that give the syrup its fresh orange scent and flavour.
- Orange juice
- Adds the main orange flavour and liquid to the syrup.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the orange flavour.
The step that matters
Heating the sealed bottles in water. Heating corked bottles in water brings the syrup to a gentle boil so it stays stable in storage. Letting the bottles cool completely before handling avoids pressure building in the warm syrup.
“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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