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To Preserve Oranges with Marmalade

A method of preserving oranges by filling them with marmalade and storing them in syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 as thin as possible and cut a hole in the stalk end the size of a sixpence.

  2. Remove all the pulp.

  3. Soak the oranges in salt and water, then boil them uncovered for a little over an hour until they are tender.

Make the marmalade filling

  1. Prepare a syrup by dissolving 1 pound of fine loaf sugar in 1 pint of water.

  2. Add the boiled oranges and cook until they look clear.

  3. Remove the skins and seeds from the pulp.

  4. Finely chop one of the oranges and mix it with the pulp.

  5. Add double the weight of sugar to the mixture.

  6. Cook the mixture in a clean pan over low heat until it becomes clear and transparent.

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

Preserve and finish

  1. Place the tops back on and return them to the syrup.

  2. Let them sit for two months.

  3. Make a new syrup with double-refined sugar and enough water to dissolve it.

  4. Boil and skim well, then give the oranges a quick boil in this syrup.

  5. Cover the oranges 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
Form the shell that holds the filling and gives the preserve its main flavour.
Fine loaf sugar
Makes the syrup and marmalade sweet and, at this concentration, helps preserve the fruit.
Double-refined sugar
Forms the final syrup that coats the oranges, adding sweetness and a clear, glossy finish.

The step that matters

Cooking the marmalade filling until clear and transparent. Cooking low and slow lets the sugar dissolve fully and the pectin in the fruit set without scorching. Too much heat can burn the sugar and darken or toughen the filling.

“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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