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Dessert

Citron Preserves

Citron preserves are made by boiling citron rind, cooling, then cooking with sugar syrup until soft.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 34% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,096 recipes. The science ↓

Citron Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind

  1. Prepare the citron rind in your desired shape.

  2. Boil the rind in water for 39 to 40 minutes.

  3. Remove from water and place in cold water; let stand overnight.

  4. The next morning, change the water and boil again until the rind changes color and becomes soft.

Make the preserve

  1. Make a syrup with 1½ pounds of sugar for every pound of fruit.

  2. Add the fruit to the syrup and cook briefly until well combined.

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. Sugar + macetop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,096 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Citron rind
Forms the main body of the preserve and becomes tender and translucent after repeated boiling.
White sugar
Makes the syrup that sweetens the rind and helps preserve its texture.

The step that matters

Boiling the rind until soft. Heat softens the rind's cell walls and pectin gradually. Stop when it is soft and changed in color, since further boiling can make it mushy and fall apart.

“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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