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Orange Syrup

A sweet syrup made from orange rinds, juice, lemon juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Orange Syrup

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

Prepare the juice and rind

  1. Rasp 8 China oranges very finely into a bowl.

  2. Squeeze the juice from 12 China oranges and 2 lemons into the bowl with the rind, and mix everything together with a spoon.

  3. Drain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil 1 quart of fine syrup until it is almost caramel.

  2. Add the juice to the syrup and ensure it is a fine syrup.

Bottle

  1. Pour the syrup into bottles, cork them, and seal with a bladder the next day.

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 + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

China oranges
Their juice and finely grated rind supply the main citrus flavour and aroma.
Lemons
Their juice adds acidity that brightens the sweet syrup.
Fine syrup
Sugar syrup provides sweetness and the body that holds the citrus flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup until almost caramel. As sugar heats toward caramel it darkens and can turn bitter. Stopping just short keeps the syrup sweet and clear, so the citrus flavour is not masked by burnt notes.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, 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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