Why it works: Sugar and orange 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 ↓
Oranges Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil the water and sugar together for 20 minutes, skimming constantly.
Remove from heat and let it cool to about body temperature.
Ferment
Add the juice and finely grated rinds of the oranges.
Leave the mixture open for 3 days.
After 3 days, cork it and let it ferment for 6 months before use.
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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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and orange 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
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides the sweetness and alcohol base of the wine.
- Orange juice
- Supplies the main flavour, acidity and the sugars and nutrients that support fermentation.
- Orange rinds
- Add aromatic oils that give the wine its orange aroma and bitter depth.
The step that matters
Cooling the syrup before adding the juice. Adding juice to syrup that is still hot can kill the yeast and its wild-yeast activity, so the mixture should cool to about body temperature first.
“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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