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Transparent Marmalade

A clear marmalade made from Seville oranges, sugar, water, and a pinch of salt.

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.

  2. Remove the pulp into a basin.

  3. Pick out the seeds.

  4. Pick out the skins.

  5. Soak the outsides in water with a little salt overnight.

  6. Boil the soaked outsides in plenty of spring water until tender.

  7. Drain the soaked outsides.

  8. Slice them thinly.

Make and set the marmalade

  1. Add the sliced outsides to the pulp.

  2. Add 1½ pounds of sugar for every pound of pulp.

  3. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes.

  4. Stir gently to avoid breaking the slices.

  5. If the mixture is not clear, simmer for an additional 5-6 minutes.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

  7. Transfer the cooled marmalade to 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
Provide the bitter peel and pectin-rich pulp that give marmalade its characteristic flavour and set.
Double-refined sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set and preserve the fruit.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 20 minutes. Sugar and fruit must be boiled long enough for the pectin and acid to reach the concentration needed to gel. Too little boiling leaves marmalade runny; boiling too long can darken and over-thicken 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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