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Dessert

Orange Marmalade

A preserved citrus spread made from sliced oranges, water, sugar, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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 ↓

Orange Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the oranges, removing the ends and seeds.

  2. Combine the sliced oranges with water and let stand for 24 hours.

Cook and jar

  1. Boil the mixture until the oranges are tender.

  2. Add 1 pound of sugar for every pint of fruit and the juice of 2 lemons.

  3. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes, then pour into cans or jelly tumblers.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 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

Oranges
Provides the bitter-sweet flavour and the pectin that helps the marmalade set.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set and keep.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances sweetness and helps the pectin set.

The step that matters

Boiling after the sugar is added. Sugar, acid and pectin set only when the mixture reaches a full, sustained boil and thickens. Too short a boil leaves the marmalade runny, while overlong boiling can darken it and make it stiff.

“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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