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Dessert

Orange Jelly

A jelly made from orange peels, juice, thick syrup, and isinglass or gelatin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,179 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Orange Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Make ½ cup of thick syrup.

  2. Add the peels of sweet and Seville oranges before boiling.

  3. Remove the peels before the syrup becomes too bitter.

  4. If needed, add a small quantity of water while boiling to help skim off the scum.

  5. Skim off any scum.

Make the jelly

  1. Add the juice of 6 oranges.

  2. Dissolve ½ ounce of isinglass or gelatine as for other jellies.

  3. Pass the mixture through a jelly bag to strain.

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. Syrup + orangetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Juice and peel supply the main flavour and aroma of the jelly.
Isinglass or gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, wobbly jelly as it cools.
Sugar syrup
Adds sweetness and body, helping the jelly hold its texture.

The step that matters

Remove the peels before the syrup becomes too bitter. Citrus peel releases bitter oils and pith compounds the longer it cooks in hot syrup, so over-boiling it makes the finished jelly taste bitter rather than fragrant.

“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.

More orange jelly recipes

Seville 17Cake 13Florida 8Baskets 8Lemon 4China 3 See all 328 →

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