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 ↓
Candied Orange Peel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peel
Wipe the orange and remove the peel in quarters.
Cut the peel into narrow strips.
Cook the strips in water until tender.
Make the syrup
Heat the sugar with ¼ cup of the cooking water until dissolved.
Add the orange peel to the sugar solution.
Cook slowly until the syrup is nearly evaporated.
Finish
Drain the strips.
Roll the strips in granulated sugar.
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.
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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
- Orange peel
- Provides the main flavour and the bitter aromatic oils that make up the candy.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the peel and, as syrup, penetrates it and forms a sticky coating once dried.
The step that matters
Cook slowly until the syrup is nearly evaporated. Sugar syrup thickens as water boils off and can crystallise or scorch if heated too fast. Slow cooking lets the sugar soak evenly into the peel and leaves a glossy, tender candy rather than a burnt or grainy one.
“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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