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To Preserve Oranges with Marmalade

A method for preserving oranges in a marmalade syrup.

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 ↓

To Preserve Oranges with Marmalade

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Pare the oranges thinly and cut a hole in the stem end.

  2. Remove all the pulp and soak the oranges in salt and water.

  3. Boil the oranges uncovered for a little over an hour.

  4. Prepare a syrup with 1 pound of sugar and 1 pint of water.

  5. Add the boiled oranges to the syrup.

  6. Boil until the oranges look clear.

Make the marmalade

  1. Remove the pulp's seeds and cut one orange into thin slices.

  2. Add the sliced orange to the pulp and mix with double-refined sugar.

  3. Boil the mixture in a clean pan over low heat until clear and transparent.

Fill and preserve

  1. Once cooled, fill the oranges with the marmalade.

  2. Place the filled oranges back in the syrup.

  3. Let them stand for two months.

  4. Prepare a new syrup with double-refined sugar and water.

  5. Boil the oranges in the new syrup.

  6. Cover with brandy papers and tie them down with a bladder.

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

Oranges
Their peel and pulp form the shell and the marmalade filling of the dish.
Fine loaf sugar
Sugar in the syrup sweetens the oranges and preserves them by drawing out moisture.
Double-refined sugar
Refined sugar sweetens and thickens the marmalade and preserves the filled oranges in the new syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the marmalade until clear and transparent. Sugar must dissolve fully and the mixture must reach a thick set over low heat. Too little cooking leaves it runny, while overheating can scorch the sugar and darken the flavour.

“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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