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Ratafia of Orange

A sweet orange liqueur made by infusing orange rind in brandy, sweetened with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,706 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Ratafia of Orange

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel the oranges.

  2. Infuse the orange rind in the brandy for 15 days.

Make the syrup

  1. Melt the sugar in the cold water.

Finish

  1. Strain and filter the mixture as described above.

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 + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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
The peel supplies the citrus aroma and flavor that the brandy draws out.
Brandy
Acts as the solvent that extracts flavor from the rind and helps preserve the liqueur.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body, balancing the bitterness and alcohol of the infusion.

The step that matters

Melt the sugar in the cold water. Sugar dissolves more slowly in cold water than in warm, so it needs thorough stirring to dissolve fully before being combined with the infusion. Undissolved grains can leave the finished liqueur gritty or cloudy.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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