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Clear Orange Marmalade

A clear marmalade made from Seville oranges, orange rinds, water, and sugar.

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

Clear Orange Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Prepare the oranges by removing the pulp from the pits and skin.

  2. Wash and wipe the orange rinds clean, then boil them in a large quantity of water until tender.

  3. Drain the rinds and scrape off the white skin and fibers while warm.

  4. Pound the rinds to a paste and blend with the pulp and juice gradually to avoid lumps.

  5. Add a quarter pint of water (strained from the seeds) to soften the flavor and assist in jelling.

Cook the marmalade

  1. Boil the mixture quickly without sugar for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Add half of the sugar and boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

  3. Add the remaining sugar and boil for another 15 to 20 minutes until thick and clear.

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 + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Seville oranges
Provide the pulp and juice that give the marmalade its bitter, acidic flavor and pectin for setting.
Orange rinds
Add bitterness and aroma, and their pectin helps the marmalade thicken and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, at high concentration, helps it set into a thick, clear gel.
Water
Dilutes the pulp and rinds so they can soften and release pectin during boiling.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar in stages during the boil. Sugar added too early or too fast can toughen the rind and slow setting, while the sugar must reach a high enough concentration with acid and pectin for the marmalade to gel. Adding it in portions and boiling until thick helps the mixture set clear.

“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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