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 ↓
Candied Orange Peel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peel
Cut the orange peel into thin strips.
Soak the strips in strong salt water overnight.
Wash the peel well in 5 or 6 changes of water to remove the salt.
Candy the peel
Boil the peel with sugar and ½ cup of water for about 10 minutes.
Beat the mixture until it sugars, ensuring each piece is separated before it hardens.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Sweetens the peel and forms a crystallized coating as the syrup dries and cools.
- Orange peel
- Supplies the fragrant citrus oils and the slightly bitter flavor that defines the candy.
The step that matters
Beat the mixture until it sugars, separating each piece. As the syrup cools, sugar crystallizes and the strips harden into one mass. Separating the pieces while the coating is still soft keeps them loose and individual.
“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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