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Dessert

Oranges in Syrup

Preserved oranges soaked in a sugar syrup with liqueur.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Oranges in Syrup

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 ↓

Oranges in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oranges

  1. Peel the oranges and remove all white pith without damaging the skin.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar in water to create a clear syrup.

  2. Add the liqueur to the syrup and pour it over the oranges.

  3. Let the oranges sit for 3-4 hours, then turn them over.

  4. Boil the syrup again and pour it over the oranges once more.

Serve

  1. Serve in a glass dish and garnish with sprigs of myrtle.

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.

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.

  1. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 fruit and juice that the syrup soaks into and flavors.
Loaf sugar
Dissolves in boiling water to form the syrup, adding sweetness and body.
Maraschino or other liqueur
Adds aroma and a distinctive flavor to the syrup.

The step that matters

Remove all the white pith. Pith is bitter and spongy, so leaving any on the orange will make the fruit taste bitter, while cutting into the skin lets juice escape and weakens the fruit's structure.

“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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