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Preserve

Orange Marmalade

A preserve of sliced sweet and bitter oranges and lemons cooked with sugar until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and bitter orange work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 23 recipes. Both carry acetal, which smells cream, earthy. The science ↓

Orange Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut 12 sweet oranges (Valencia), 6 bitter oranges (Seville) and 4 lemons in very thin slices.

  2. Cover the fruit with 4 quarts of water and let the whole stand 36 hours.

Cook

  1. Boil three hours.

  2. Add 8 pounds sugar and boil two hours more.

  3. Judge the amount of sugar according to the size and sweetness of the oranges.

  4. Do not boil too much, as this makes the marmalade dark.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

173Calories
2 gProtein
0 gFat
43 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sweet Orange1 medium (131g)62
Bitter Orange1 medium (131g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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 + bitter orangetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetal (cream, earthy).

  2. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + bitter orangetop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14 recipes

Sugar and orange 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

Sweet oranges
Supply the main sweet flavour and bulk of the marmalade's pulp and peel.
Bitter oranges
Add the sharp, bitter notes and pectin that help the marmalade set.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and keep as a preserve.

The step that matters

Do not boil too much. Prolonged boiling darkens the sugar and fruit, turning the marmalade brown and changing its flavour. Watch the cooking time closely.

Swap the bitter orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Bitter orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange. 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.

More orange marmalade recipes

Seville 44Pudding 17Clear 10Scotch 6Bitter 4 See all 487 →

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