Skip to main content
Dessert

Jujube in Candy

A candy made by dissolving gum arabic in orange-flower water, adding crystallized sugar, heating to a thick consistency, and setting in a starch-lined box.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Jujube in Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Dissolve the gum arabic in the orange-flower water.

  2. Add the crystallized sugar to the mixture.

  3. Heat in a bain-marie until it reaches a thick jelly-like consistency without stirring.

Set the candy

  1. Prepare a square box lined with very dry starch powder.

  2. Pour the mixture into the box and let it set.

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

Gum arabic
Forms the thick, gel-like base that sets into the firm candy.
Orange-flower water
Dissolves the gum and gives the candy its floral aroma.
Crystallized sugar
Adds sweetness to the candy.

The step that matters

Heat in a bain-marie without stirring. Gentle, indirect heat thickens the gum solution evenly without scorching it. Stirring can introduce air bubbles and disturb the sugar, leaving the set texture uneven.

“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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes