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 ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Remove the peel from the oranges in quarters.
Place the peel in a saucepan with water and boil until soft enough to pierce with a pin.
Divide the oranges into sections and scrape out the pulp into a basin, discarding the pips.
Boil the pips and skin in enough water to cover for half an hour, then strain the liquid and add it to the pulp.
Remove all the pith from the peel and cut it into thin slices about an inch long.
Make and jar the marmalade
Combine the pulp, peel, and sugar in a saucepan and boil for half an hour or longer until it sets.
Pour into jars and cover like jam.
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.
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Seville and china oranges
- Provide the fruit pulp and peel that give marmalade its bitter-sweet flavour and body.
- Lump sugar
- Sweetens the marmalade and, with the pectin in the fruit, helps it set.
- Pips and skin (in the method)
- Release pectin into the strained liquid, helping the marmalade thicken and set.
The step that matters
Boiling until it sets. Marmalade sets when pectin, acid and sugar reach the right concentration. Boiling too briefly leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and dark.
“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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