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Dessert

Orange Marmalade

A preserve made from Seville oranges, lemons, water, and sugar, boiled until it gels.

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. Rub each orange and lemon with a cloth to remove dirt.

  2. Divide each orange and lemon into quarters.

  3. Remove the pulp and juice, leaving the peel intact, and discard all seeds.

  4. Place the peels, pulp, and juice in a bowl.

  5. Cut the peels into very fine shreds and add to the bowl with the pulp and juice.

  6. Weigh the mixture, then add 3 pints of cold water for every pound of shreds, pulp, and juice.

  7. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

Cook and set

  1. Boil until the peel becomes soft and almost transparent, about 1 hour.

  2. Let it stand for another 24 hours.

  3. Weigh again and add 1.25 pounds of sugar for every pound of mixture.

  4. Boil for about 30 minutes after it reaches a boil, stirring to prevent burning.

  5. To test if it's done, place a little on a plate to cool; if it jellies, it's ready.

Jar

  1. Remove from heat and pour the marmalade into jars, sealing them securely.

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

Seville oranges
Supply the bitter peel, pulp and pectin that give marmalade its body and tang.
Lemons
Add extra acidity and pectin-rich pulp that helps the marmalade set.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, when boiled, helps it thicken and set into a jelly.

The step that matters

Testing for the set. Marmalade thickens as water evaporates and sugar concentrates; pectin and acid then form a gel as it cools. Overcooking can make it stiff, while undercooking leaves it runny, so a cooled test on a plate is the reliable check.

“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.

More orange marmalade recipes

Seville 44Pudding 17Clear 10Scotch 6Bitter 4 See all 487 →

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