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 Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pulp
Pick the insides out of the orange skins, ensuring they are free from seeds.
To every pound of pulp, add a pound of fine sifted sugar.
Cook the marmalade
Boil the mixture for twenty-five minutes.
Add the chopped preserved peels to the marmalade just before putting it in pots.
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
- Orange pulp
- Provides the fruit base, natural pectin and acidity that help the marmalade set.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the marmalade thicken and set while preserving it.
- Preserved orange peels
- Adds chewy texture and concentrated orange flavour to the finished marmalade.
The step that matters
Boiling the mixture for twenty-five minutes. Sustained boiling drives off water so the sugar, fruit pectin and acid can reach the concentration needed to set. Too short a boil leaves the marmalade runny, while overlong boiling can darken it and dull the fresh orange 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.
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