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Dessert

Orange Marmalade

A preserve made from peeled oranges, apples, sugar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peel

  1. Peel the oranges, removing all seeds and tough skin.

  2. Cut the peel into small pieces.

  3. Soak the cut peel in cold water.

Cook the fruit

  1. Boil the soaked peel until tender.

  2. Weigh the apples.

  3. Stew the apples with a little water until perfectly done.

  4. Set the stewed apples aside.

Make the marmalade

  1. Run the orange pulp through a colander into a preserving kettle.

  2. Add 6 pounds of sugar to the orange pulp.

  3. Boil the mixture slowly, scraping the bottom constantly.

  4. Boil the soaked orange peel until soft, changing the water three times.

  5. In another preserving kettle, simmer the orange peel with the orange pulp and 2 pounds of sugar.

  6. When both mixtures are nearly done, combine the oranges with the apples.

  7. Cook the combined mixture until thick.

Cool and jar

  1. Cool the mixture in a bowl.

  2. Transfer the cooled mixture to a glass jar with a screw top.

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 + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

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

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
Supply the pulp and peel, which give the marmalade its bitter aroma and natural pectin.
Apples
Add extra pectin, helping the marmalade thicken and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, when concentrated by boiling, helps it set and keep.

The step that matters

Cook the combined mixture until thick. Pectin and sugar only set when the mixture has boiled down enough. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while cooking too long can make it stiff or scorch on the bottom.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. 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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