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 ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Cut the peel of the oranges around the middle and remove it in halves.
Slice the peel into fine strips and pull the fruit apart with two forks, removing the seeds.
Combine the fruit and peel with 2½ pints of water and let it sit for 24 hours.
Cook the marmalade
The next day, boil the mixture until the peel is soft and let it sit until the following day.
Add 1 lb 2 oz of sugar for every pound of fruit and peel, and boil until the peel becomes transparent.
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.
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 pulp that give marmalade its characteristic flavour and pectin for setting.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set into a firm, spreadable gel.
The step that matters
Boiling until the peel is transparent. Peel softens during the first boil but must then be cooked with sugar until translucent. Undercooking leaves tough peel, while overcooking can make the set too firm or dark.
“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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