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Dessert

Orange Marmalade

A preserved citrus spread made from Seville orange rinds, pulp, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Orange Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rinds

  1. Grate the rinds of the oranges and cut them into quarters, removing the flesh and pips.

  2. Soak the rinds in cold water overnight.

  3. Boil the rinds until tender, about 20 minutes, then drain and slice them thin.

Cook and jar

  1. Combine the orange pulp and sliced rinds in a preserving pan with the sugar.

  2. Cook the mixture for about 30 minutes, skimming off any foam.

  3. Pour the marmalade into jars while hot and seal.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 set and characteristic flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set by binding water and pectin as it cooks.
Lemons
Add extra acidity and pectin, supporting a firm set and balancing the sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture for about 30 minutes, skimming off any foam. Sugar and fruit must reach a high enough concentration and temperature for pectin and acid to set the marmalade. Undercooking leaves it runny, while skimming removes foam that can spoil the texture and clarity.

“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.

More orange marmalade recipes

Seville 44Pudding 17Clear 10Scotch 6Bitter 4 See all 487 →

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