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 ↓
To Preserve Oranges or Lemons in Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Cut a hole in the stalk part of the fruit, the size of a shilling.
Scrape out the pulp without cutting the rind.
Tie each fruit in muslin.
Soak in spring water for two days, changing the water twice a day.
Boil the fruit tender in water on a slow fire.
Make the syrup
Combine 2 pounds of sugar and 1 pint of water in a pot with the juice of the fruit.
Boil until syrupy.
Clarify the syrup.
Let the syrup cool.
Boil the fruit in the syrup for half an hour.
Repeat daily until clear.
Make the apple jelly and pack
For apple jelly, boil pared and cored green pippins in water until strong in flavor.
Strain through a jelly-bag.
Add 1 pound of sugar, the peel and juice of a lemon to every pint of the strained liquid.
Boil to a strong syrup.
Drain the syrup from the fruit.
Pour the apple jelly over the oranges or lemons in a jar, with the hole facing upwards.
Cover with brandy paper.
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.
-
Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,634 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
-
Orange + appletop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup that preserves the fruit and sets the clear, jelly-like texture.
- Oranges or lemons
- Provide the main fruit, whose rind is kept whole and filled with preserving jelly.
- Green pippins
- Supply pectin and tart flavor to make the apple jelly that fills the fruit.
The step that matters
Boil the fruit in the syrup for half an hour, repeating daily until clear. Repeated gentle simmering in sugar syrup slowly draws water out and replaces it with sugar, so the rind becomes clear and preserved. Boiling hard or skipping repeats can toughen or cloud the fruit.
Swap the apple
The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (orange, sugar, lemon):
- Limefits better
- Vanillafits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, lemon. 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 Cake349 recipes
Apple Pudding256 recipes
Lemon Cake228 recipes
Lemon Ice147 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.