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Marmalade Transparent

A clear marmalade made from orange peels, pulp, salt, water, and double‑refined 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 ↓

Marmalade Transparent

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peel

  1. Cut the oranges into quarters and remove the pulp, keeping only the skin and seeds.

  2. Soak the peels overnight in a mixture of salt and water.

  3. Boil the peels in spring water until tender, then cut them into very thin slices.

  4. Add the sliced peels to the pulp.

Cook the marmalade

  1. For every pound of marmalade, add 1.5 pounds of finely sifted double-refined sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture gently for 20 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid breaking the slices.

  3. If not clear, simmer for an additional 5–6 minutes while stirring.

Pot and seal

  1. Once cooled, transfer to jelly or sweetmeat glasses and seal with brandied paper.

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
Their peel supplies the bitter flavour and pectin that help the marmalade set.
Double-refined sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set and keep by drawing water away from the fruit.
Spring water
Softens the peel during boiling and dilutes the sugar so the peel cooks evenly.

The step that matters

Stirring during the 20-minute boil. Constant stirring keeps the sugar dissolved and the peel slices from sticking to the pan and breaking apart, which would cloud the marmalade and spoil its texture.

“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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