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Dessert

Candied Orange, or Lemon Peel

Candied orange peel made by simmering strips in sugar syrup and dusting with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Candied Orange, or Lemon Peel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peel

  1. Soak the Seville orange peel in several waters until it loses its bitterness.

  2. Cut the peel into thin strips.

Make the syrup and candy

  1. Simmer the strips in a syrup made of 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water until tender and nearly transparent.

  2. Remove the peel and let it sit for about 24 hours.

  3. Simmer the peel again in a syrup made of 6 ounces of water and 1 pound of sugar until the sugar begins to candy around the pan and peel.

Drain and dry

  1. Lay the strips on a wire sieve to drain.

  2. While still hot, sift finely powdered sugar over the strips.

  3. Place the strips to dry in a warm oven.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Orange + syruptop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 orange peel
Provides the main flavour and aromatic bitterness, which soaking reduces.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the peel and, as a concentrated syrup, preserves it and makes it candied.
Loaf sugar
Forms a thicker syrup that crystallises on the peel's surface for a candied coating.
Finely powdered sugar
Dusts the warm strips, giving a dry, sweet, non-sticky finish.

The step that matters

Simmering in the second syrup until the sugar begins to candy. Cooking must stop at the right point: too little and the peel stays wet and sticky, too much and the sugar over-crystallises and the peel turns hard and brittle. Syrup concentration rises as water evaporates, so watch the pan closely.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup. 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.

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Rings 4Sticks 3 See all 77 →

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