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To Make Orange Wine a Third Way

A fermented beverage made from water, powdered sugar, egg whites, yeast, lemon syrup, and orange juice and peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

To Make Orange Wine a Third Way

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the must

  1. Boil the water, powdered sugar, and beaten egg whites for 45 minutes, skimming well.

  2. Let the mixture cool to a working temperature.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Mix in the yeast, lemon syrup, and the juice and peel of the oranges.

  2. Allow it to ferment for 2 days and 1 night.

  3. Turn the mixture.

  4. After 3 months, bottle it.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 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

Powdered sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast converts to alcohol during fermentation.
Egg whites
Bind impurities that rise as foam, which are skimmed off during boiling.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation.
Oranges
Supply juice and peel that add acidity and citrus aroma.

The step that matters

Skimming while boiling. Egg whites coagulate and carry impurities to the surface as foam. Removing that foam thoroughly keeps the liquid clear and reduces off-flavors before fermentation begins.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, lemon, syrup. 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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