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 ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Weigh the oranges.
Use 1 pound of sugar for each pound of oranges.
Pare the yellow rind from half of the oranges as thin as possible.
Place the rinds in a pan with plenty of cold water and cover the pan.
Boil slowly until soft.
Grate the rind from the remaining oranges.
Set the grated rind aside.
Quarter the oranges.
Remove the pulp, seeds, and core.
Make the marmalade
In a preserving kettle, combine the sugar with ½ cup of water for each pound of fruit and dissolve the sugar.
Boil the mixture until the syrup is clear and thick.
Skim the mixture.
Cut the boiled parings into small pieces and add them to the sugar.
Boil for 10 minutes.
Add the pulp, juice, and grated rind.
Boil together for 20 minutes until transparent.
Jar and cover
When cold, transfer to glass jars.
Cover with brandied paper.
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.
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Supply the rind and pulp, whose natural pectin helps the marmalade set.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade, helps it set and preserves it by binding water.
The step that matters
Boil the syrup until clear and thick. Sugar and pectin only form a firm gel at the right concentration. Undercooking leaves the marmalade runny, while overcooking darkens it and can turn the sugar bitter.
“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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