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 Jam
Ingredients
Directions
Squeeze the sweet oranges and pass the pulp through a sieve.
For every quart of fruit, add 1 pound of white sugar.
Boil the mixture for twenty minutes.
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
- Sweet oranges
- Provide the fruit pulp and natural pectin and acidity that form the jam's body and flavor.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the jam and, while boiling, helps set it into a thick, spreadable texture.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture for twenty minutes. Boiling concentrates the sugar and fruit so the mixture reaches a set point; too little boiling leaves the jam runny, while overboiling can scorch the sugar and darken the flavor.
“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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