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Dessert

Orange Marmalade

A preserve made from orange rind, pulp, juice, sugar, water, and apple liquor.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rind and pulp

  1. Grate the oranges and cut out the pulp.

  2. Boil the rinds until very tender, then beat them finely in a marble mortar.

Make the marmalade

  1. In a pot, boil the sugar in water, skimming off any foam.

  2. Add the pound of rind and boil until the syrup is very thick, stirring carefully.

  3. Add the pulp, juice, and apple liquor, then boil gently until well jellied, about 30 minutes.

  4. Pour the marmalade into small pots.

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 + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled thick, helps the marmalade set.
Orange rind
Supplies the bitter aroma and texture that gives marmalade its character.
Orange pulp and juice
Adds liquid and natural pectin and acidity that help the marmalade gel.
Apple liquor
Contributes extra pectin and acidity to help the marmalade jell.

The step that matters

Boiling until well jellied. Marmalade sets when sugar, pectin and acid reach the right concentration. Boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while over-boiling can make it stiff and dark, so the cook should watch for a jelly-like set.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apple. 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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