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Dessert

Orange-flower Candy

A candied syrup made from sugar, water, orange blossoms, and optionally egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and orange 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 ↓

Orange-flower Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar and water together until the syrup reaches a point of boiling.

  2. Add orange blossoms after boiling for about 10 minutes and simmer for 5 more minutes.

Infuse and strain

  1. Pour the mixture out and let it infuse until the next day.

  2. Strain the syrup through muslin to remove the blossoms.

  3. If using, clarify the syrup with the egg white before straining.

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 + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Sugar and orange 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and body, and thickens the syrup as it boils down.
Orange blossoms
Supply the delicate floral aroma and flavour that infuse into the syrup.
Egg white
When heated, it coagulates and traps impurities so they can be strained out, clarifying the syrup.

The step that matters

Simmering the blossoms. Adding the blossoms and simmering too long or too hard can drive off the delicate floral aroma and draw out bitter notes. Keep the heat gentle and follow the stated times.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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