Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Marmalade

A marmalade made from Seville oranges, lemons, water, and sugar, boiled and jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Rub each orange and lemon with a cloth to remove dirt.

  2. Divide the oranges and lemons into quarters.

  3. Remove pulp and juice from the fruit. Leave the peel intact.

  4. Place the peel in a bowl. Discard all seeds.

  5. Finely shred the peel.

  6. Add the shredded peel to the bowl with the pulp and juice.

  7. Weigh the mixture.

  8. Add 3 pints of cold water for every pound of shreds, pulp, and juice.

  9. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

Cook and set

  1. Boil the mixture until the peel becomes soft and almost transparent, about 1 hour.

  2. Let the mixture stand for another 24 hours.

  3. Weigh the mixture again.

  4. Add 1.25 pounds of sugar for every pound of mixture.

  5. Boil for about 30 minutes after it reaches a boil, stirring to prevent burning.

  6. Place a little of the marmalade on a plate to cool.

  7. Test if it jellies; if it does, it is ready.

  8. Remove from heat.

  9. Pour the marmalade into jars, sealing them securely.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Seville oranges
Their peel and pulp supply the bitterness, pectin and aroma that define the marmalade.
Lemons
Add extra acidity and pectin, helping the marmalade set.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, when boiled, helps it thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boiling after adding the sugar. Sugar must dissolve and the mixture must reach a full rolling boil to set properly. Stirring prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a burnt flavour.

“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 marmalade recipes

Seville 44Pudding 17Clear 10Scotch 6Bitter 4 See all 487 →

You might also like

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