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Orange Syrup

A sweet syrup made from orange juice, powdered sugar, and lemon juice, boiled and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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

  1. Squeeze the juice from the oranges through a sieve.

  2. Add 1½ pounds of powdered sugar and the juice of 1 lemon to the orange juice.

  3. Boil the mixture for 15 minutes, skimming off any scum that rises.

  4. Strain the syrup, then bottle and seal it tightly.

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. Sugar + lemontop 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).

Sugar and lemon 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

Thin-skinned oranges
Provide the main juice that forms the body and orange flavor of the syrup.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the juice to form the sweet, thick body of the syrup.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the orange flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 minutes and skim. Boiling concentrates the syrup as water evaporates, and skimming removes scum that would otherwise cloud the syrup and spoil its clarity and keeping quality.

“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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