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 ↓
Candied Orange Peel
Ingredients
Directions
Blanch the peel
Peel the oranges and cut the skin into narrow strips.
Place the strips in a porcelain pan and cover with salted water.
Boil for 5 to 10 minutes, then drain.
Cover the strips with boiling water (without salt).
Boil for the same time, then drain again.
Repeat with a third boiling water for about 10 minutes.
Drain the orange peels well.
Make the syrup and candy the peel
Make a thick syrup by dissolving 3 cups of sugar in enough water.
Boil until it boils and begins to sugar.
Add the peels to the syrup and boil until the syrup returns to sugar.
Cool
Lay the peels separately on a platter dusted with powdered sugar to cool.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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
- Oranges
- Supply the peel that is candied, giving the dish its bitter citrus flavor and aroma.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the peel and forms the syrup that crystallizes on it as it cools.
The step that matters
Boiling the peels in the syrup until the syrup returns to sugar. The syrup must reach a high enough sugar concentration to crystallize on the peel as it cools. Stopping too early leaves the peel sticky and wet, while cooking too long can make the coating hard and brittle.
“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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