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Dessert

Transparent Marmalade

A clear marmalade made from Seville oranges, their peels, pulp, salt, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Transparent Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Cut the oranges into quarters and remove the pulp.

  2. Soak the peels in salt and water overnight.

  3. Boil the peels in spring water until tender.

  4. Slice the peels thinly and mix them with the pulp.

Make the marmalade

  1. Add 1½ pounds of sugar for every pound of marmalade and boil gently for 20 minutes.

  2. Stir gently to avoid breaking the slices and boil longer if not transparent.

  3. Once cooled, transfer to jars and seal 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.

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

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

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Very pale seville oranges
Peel and pulp supply the bitter flavour and natural pectin that help the marmalade set.
Double refined beaten sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set and keep when boiled with the fruit.

The step that matters

Stir gently and boil until the slices are transparent. Vigorous stirring breaks the peel slices into fragments, and undercooked peel stays opaque and tough. Gentle stirring keeps the slices whole, and extra boiling softens the peel and lets the sugar concentrate so the marmalade sets properly.

“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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