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Orange Marmalade

A preserved citrus spread made by boiling oranges and lemon with water 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. Discard the seeds and blossom end of the oranges and lemon.

  2. Place the fruit in a bowl and pour 3 pints of cold water over it.

  3. Let it stand for 24 hours.

Cook and sweeten

  1. Boil for 1.5 hours until very tender.

  2. Let it stand for another 24 hours.

  3. For each cup of fruit and liquid, add 1 cup of cane sugar.

  4. Boil quickly for 1 hour or until it jells.

  5. Remove from heat.

Jar and rest

  1. Fill glasses.

  2. Let stand for 2 days before sealing.

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

Oranges
Provide the bitter peel and pulp that give marmalade its characteristic flavour and body.
Lemon
Adds extra acidity and pectin-rich pith that helps the marmalade set.
Cane sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, with boiling, helps it thicken and set as it jells.

The step that matters

Boil quickly until it jells. Sugar and fruit pectin only form a gel at a high enough concentration and temperature. Boiling too gently can leave the marmalade runny, while overcooking can make it stiff or dark.

“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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