Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Syrup

A syrup made from orange juice, lemon juice, zest, and caramelized sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Orange Syrup

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 Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Zest the rind of 8 oranges and juice all 12 oranges and the 2 lemons.

  2. Mix the zest and juice together, then strain through a fine sieve.

  3. Boil the quart of syrup until it reaches a caramel stage.

Combine and bottle

  1. Combine the clear juice with the syrup and bottle for use.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Orange + syruptop 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
Provide the main flavour and the juice that gives the syrup its body and brightness.
Lemons
Add acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the citrus flavour.
Fine syrup
Supplies sweetness and body, and is boiled to develop a caramel stage.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup to a caramel stage. Sugar darkens and changes flavour quickly near the caramel stage, so it can turn bitter if overcooked. Watching the colour closely keeps the flavour balanced.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, syrup. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes