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Orange and Lemon Syrup

A citrus syrup made by infusing orange and lemon rinds in sugar syrup, then clarifying and reducing with water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 and Lemon Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the rinds

  1. Combine cold sugar syrup, orange rind, and lemon rind in an earthen jar.

  2. Cover and let infuse for 24 hours.

Make the syrup

  1. Press juice from the oranges and lemons into a quart of water.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine silk sieve.

  3. In a preserving pan, combine the strained juice and cut loaf sugar over medium heat.

  4. Heat until the mixture reaches 32 degrees on a saccharometer.

  5. Pour into an earthen jar and let cool before bottling.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and lemon 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

Orange and lemon rind
Releases aromatic oils into the syrup, giving it its citrus fragrance and flavour.
Cut loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and helps thicken the syrup as it is heated.
Cold sugar syrup
Provides a sweet base in which the rind flavours can infuse.

The step that matters

Heating to 32 degrees on a saccharometer. Heating too little leaves the syrup thin and prone to spoiling, while overheating makes it overly thick and can cause sugar to crystallise. Checking the reading keeps the concentration correct.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup, lemon):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Limefits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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