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Orange Marmalade

A preserved citrus spread made from Seville oranges, sugar, water, and brandy-dipped paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,706 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Cut Seville oranges in half, then slice them thinly, removing the pips.

  2. For every pound of oranges, add two pounds of sifted sugar and ½ cup of water.

  3. Place the mixture in a preserving pan over high heat.

Cook and test

  1. Once boiling, stir and skim until it reaches a proper stiffness.

  2. Test the consistency by placing a little in a cold saucer.

Pot and store

  1. Fill pots with the marmalade.

  2. Let the marmalade cool.

  3. Cover the marmalade with white paper dipped in brandy.

  4. Seal the marmalade with paper and white leather.

  5. Store in a dry place.

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 + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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 pectin that give marmalade its flavour and set.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set and preserve well.

The step that matters

Stirring and skimming to a proper stiffness. Marmalade sets when sugar and pectin reach a high enough concentration as water boils off. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while cooking too long can make it hard and dull in flavour. Testing on a cold saucer shows when it has reached a set.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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.

More orange marmalade recipes

Seville 44Pudding 17Clear 10Scotch 6Bitter 4 See all 487 →

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