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Dessert

Syrup of Orange or Lemon Peel

A syrup made by infusing orange or lemon peel in boiling water, then adding sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Syrup of Orange or Lemon Peel

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the peel

  1. Infuse the orange or lemon peel in boiling water overnight in a sealed container.

  2. Strain the liquid and let it sit to settle.

  3. Pour off the clear liquid, leaving the sediment behind.

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the clear liquid over gentle heat.

  2. Boil the mixture to create a syrup.

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 + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Orange or lemon peel
Supplies the aromatic oils and flavour that scent the finished syrup.
Double-refined loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled, the thick body of the syrup.

The step that matters

Pour off the clear liquid, leaving the sediment behind. Fine particles from the peel settle to the bottom as the infusion rests. Pouring off only the clear liquid keeps the syrup bright and prevents cloudiness or grittiness in the finished product.

“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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