Skip to main content
Dessert

Chartreuse of Candied Oranges

A dessert of candied orange quarters arranged in a mold, often served with berries or ice cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Chartreuse of Candied Oranges

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel and quarter enough oranges to line the bottom and sides of a round tin jelly mold.

  2. Place the orange quarters on a sieve over the stove or oven door to dry completely.

Make the candy and line the mold

  1. In a sugar boiler, combine the sugar, water, and lemon juice, and boil until it cracks off sharply when cooled in ice water.

  2. Test the boiling sugar frequently after large bubbles appear to ensure it is boiled crisp enough.

  3. Pour sweet salad oil into the mold, coat the inside, and then pour it out.

  4. Dip each orange quarter in the hot sugar and line the mold with them, overlapping slightly.

Set and serve

  1. Allow the orange quarters to cool in the mold; they will hold their shape when turned out.

  2. Fill the chartreuse with fresh berries, small fruits, iced creams, or jellies just before serving.

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. Sugar + lemontop 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).

Sugar and lemon 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 flavour and the fruit that forms the candied shell of the mold.
Loaf sugar
Boils down to a crisp candy coating that holds the orange quarters in shape once cooled.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that helps keep the boiled sugar smooth and prevents it from turning grainy.
Sweet salad oil
Forms a thin film that helps the set candy release cleanly from the mold.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar until it cracks in ice water. If the sugar is under-boiled, the coating stays soft and sticky; if over-boiled, it turns brittle or darkens and bitter. Testing in cold water shows when it reaches the right crisp stage.

“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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes