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Transparent Marmalade

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

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 ↓

Transparent Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut the oranges into quarters and remove the pulp.

  2. Pick out the seeds and skins from the pulp.

  3. Soak the orange peels in water with a little salt overnight.

  4. Boil the peels in fresh water until tender, then drain and slice them thinly.

Make the marmalade

  1. Combine the slices with the pulp and add 1½ pounds of sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes, stirring gently.

  3. If not clear, simmer for an additional 5-6 minutes.

  4. Once cooled, transfer the marmalade into glasses.

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
Peel supplies pectin and bitterness; pulp and seeds release pectin that helps the marmalade set.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, at high concentration, helps it set and keep its texture.

The step that matters

Boiling the mixture with sugar. Sugar and pectin must reach a rolling boil together so the mixture thickens and sets; too little boiling leaves it runny, while overcooking can darken and stiffen it.

“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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