Skip to main content
Dessert

Glazed Oranges

Glazed oranges are oranges cooked in a sugar syrup, served with sour cream and cinnamon sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,437 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Glazed Oranges

Ingredients

Directions

Cook in syrup

  1. Cook the oranges in a syrup made of sugar and water until tender when pricked with a toothpick.

  2. Cool the oranges in the syrup.

  3. Add rum, brandy, or Cointreau to taste.

  4. Drain the oranges.

Serve whole

  1. Serve with sour cream and cinnamon sugar.

  2. Roll the oranges in cinnamon sugar.

Prepare and broil halves

  1. Wash the oranges.

  2. Cover with boiling water and cook until the skin is tender.

  3. Drain the oranges.

  4. Cut the oranges in half.

  5. Remove the cores.

  6. Place the halves in a baking dish.

  7. Fill the centers with sugar.

  8. Sprinkle sugar on top.

  9. Add 1 tablespoon brandy to each.

  10. Dot with butter.

  11. Broil until the sugar melts and browns delicately.

  12. Serve warm.

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 + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rum + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Oranges
Provide the main fruit, which softens as it cooks and absorbs the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and fruit, and melts and browns under the broiler.
Sour cream
Adds richness and tang that balance the sweetness of the glazed fruit.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat and richness, and helps the sugar brown on the broiled halves.

The step that matters

Broil until the sugar melts and browns delicately. Sugar goes from browned to burnt within seconds under a broiler. Watch closely and remove the dish as soon as the sugar melts and turns golden, since burnt sugar tastes bitter.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rum, cream, cinnamon. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes