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Orange Marmalade

A sweet citrus preserve made from oranges, lemons, and sugar.

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 the fruit

  1. Peel the oranges and lemons, cutting the peel into fine chips.

  2. Boil the chips until tender.

  3. Scrape the pulp from the inner skins and remove the seeds.

  4. Place the skins and seeds in a dish with a little water to extract juice.

Cook

  1. Strain the water from the chips and skins, using 1½ pints for the syrup.

  2. Boil the pulp and chips for 20 minutes, then cover and let cool.

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. Lemon + sugartop 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).

Lemon and sugar 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

Sweet oranges
Provide the peel chips and pulp that give the marmalade its texture and body.
Lemons
Add acidity and extra peel and pectin to help the marmalade set.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set and keep.

The step that matters

Boil the pulp and chips for 20 minutes. Boiling softens the peel and releases pectin from the pulp and seeds. Too little time leaves the peel tough, while overcooking can break down the pectin and prevent a good set.

“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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