Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Drops

Orange Drops are small candied orange and lemon drops made with powdered sugar.

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

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 Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Rasp the oranges very fine and squeeze them into a small pan with the rind.

  2. Squeeze the lemons into the pan without rasping the rind.

  3. Sift in powdered sugar and mix until the mixture is of fine thickness.

Cook and shape

  1. Heat the mixture in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon for five minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and drop spoonfuls onto white paper, shaping them as round as possible, about the size of a silver two-pence.

  3. Let them stand until cold, then they will come off the paper.

  4. Store them in a box.

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.

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.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 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).

Lemon and sugar 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

China oranges
Provide the main flavour and the rind's aroma, with juice adding moisture to the mixture.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the sweetness and sharpens the citrus flavour.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and thickens it into a mass that can hold its shape.

The step that matters

Heat over low heat while stirring. Gentle heat and constant stirring with a wooden spoon keep the sugar from scorching or catching on the pan, which would make the drops taste burnt and stick to the paper.

“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 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes