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 ↓
Candied Orange Peel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peel
Remove the skin from the oranges in quarter sections.
Cook the peel in a large pot of water, changing the water three times, until very tender.
Drain the peel.
Make the candy
Make a syrup by dissolving 1½ cups sugar in 1 cup water.
Add the orange peel to the syrup and cook slowly until the syrup is nearly evaporated.
Finish and dry
Remove the peel, roll in granulated sugar, and dry on waxed paper.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Provide the peel, which is cooked and candied into the finished sweet treat.
- Sugar
- Dissolves into the syrup that candies the peel, adding sweetness and a glossy coating.
The step that matters
Cook the peel until very tender before candying. Thick orange peel is bitter and tough. Repeated boiling in fresh water draws out bitterness and softens the peel, so the syrup can penetrate it evenly.
“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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