Why it works: Bitter orange and sugar work together. They rank in the top 41% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14 recipes. The science ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Grate the outer rind of the oranges into a dish.
Peel the inner rind and boil it until a straw can pierce it.
Slice the inner rind like citron.
Separate the inner tissue and seeds from the pulp of the orange.
Weigh the pulp and inner rind, then take an equal quantity of loaf sugar.
Wash the seeds and inner tissue, saving the water.
Cook the marmalade
Dissolve the sugar in the saved water.
Add the pulp and sliced rind to the sugar mixture.
Boil for one hour.
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.
-
Bitter orange + sugartop 41% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14 recipes
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Bitter oranges
- Provide the main fruit, with pulp and rind supplying the marmalade's body and bitter flavour.
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set into a thick, spreadable texture.
- Water from washing seeds and inner tissue
- Carries pectin-rich liquid from the seeds and inner tissue to help the marmalade set.
The step that matters
Boil for one hour. Boiling concentrates the mixture and drives off water so the sugar and pectin can reach the level needed for the marmalade to set. Too short a boil leaves it runny.
“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
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Orange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes
Orange Gelatin100 recipes
Orange Sherbet73 recipes