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
Weigh the oranges and prepare an equal weight of sugar.
Thinly peel the yellow rind from half of the oranges.
Soak the peeled rind in cold water.
Cover and boil the rind until soft enough to pierce with a straw.
Grate the rind of the remaining oranges.
Set the grated rind aside.
Squeeze the juice from the oranges through a sieve.
Make the marmalade
In a kettle, combine the sugar with ½ pint or less of water per pound of sugar to clarify.
Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves.
Skim the mixture until it is clear and thick.
Cut the boiled rind into small shreds.
Boil the shredded rind in sugar for 10 minutes.
Add the orange pulp, juice, and grated rind.
Boil all together until transparent.
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
- Provide the bitter peel, pulp and juice that give marmalade its flavour and pectin-rich body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, at high concentration, helps it set into a spreadable gel.
The step that matters
Boil the shredded rind until soft and the mixture turns transparent. Rind must be fully softened before sugar is added, or it stays tough. Boiling the mixture until it turns transparent shows the sugar concentration is high enough to set on cooling.
“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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