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 Peel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peel
Carefully remove the thick, unblemished orange peelings.
Weigh the peelings and soak them in cold water for two days, changing the water morning and night.
Boil the peelings in water until a straw can pass through them, then remove and place them in a dish.
Make the syrup and candy
Make a syrup by boiling 2 pounds of loaf sugar in 1 quart of water.
Boil the peelings in the syrup until tender, then transfer them to jars.
Pour the syrup over the peelings. For candied peelings, boil the syrup longer.
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
- Orange peelings
- Thick pith-backed peel that becomes the candied product after soaking and boiling in syrup.
- Loaf sugar
- Forms the syrup that sweetens the peel and, as it concentrates, preserves and glazes it.
The step that matters
Boil the peelings until a straw can pass through them. Boiling softens the peel's bitter, firm tissue so it can absorb syrup evenly. Undercooked peel stays tough and resists sugar penetration, while overcooking can make it fall apart.
“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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