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Dessert

Orange Marmalade

A preserved citrus spread made from oranges, lemons, sugar, water, and gum arabic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine gum arabic and water in a bowl.

  2. Add quartered oranges and lemons, ensuring they are as sliced as possible.

  3. For every cup of fruit and rind, add 2 cups of cold water.

  4. Let the mixture stand for at least 12 hours.

Cook

  1. Boil the mixture until the fruit is tender.

  2. For every cup of fruit, add 1½ cups of white sugar and the gum arabic.

  3. Boil for one hour, skimming off any floating seeds.

Store

  1. Pour the marmalade into glasses for storage.

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
Supply the bulk of the fruit, peel and natural pectin that help the marmalade set.
Lemons
Add extra pectin and sharp acidity that helps the marmalade set and balances the sweetness.
White sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, once concentrated by boiling, helps it set and keep.
Gum arabic
Acts as a stabiliser that keeps peel and pulp suspended, giving a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Boil until the fruit is tender before adding sugar. Sugar toughens citrus peel and stops it softening, so the peel must be fully tender first. Boiling with the sugar then concentrates the sugar and pectin so the marmalade sets.

“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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