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Orange Syrup

A sweet syrup made by boiling orange and lemon juice with sugar.

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

Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Rasp the rind of 8 oranges and squeeze the juice from all 12 oranges and the 2 lemons.

  2. Mix the juices together and strain through a fine sieve.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the quart of syrup until it reaches a caramel stage.

  2. Add the clear juice to the syrup and bottle it for use.

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.

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.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Orange + syruptop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,179 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Oranges
The juice supplies the main citrus flavour, and the rind adds fragrant aroma.
Lemons
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the syrup.
Syrup
Sugar base that gives sweetness and body to the finished syrup.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to a caramel stage. Sugar darkens quickly at high heat, so it can turn bitter or burn if overcooked. Caramelization adds colour and depth, and stopping at the right point keeps the flavour rich but not harsh.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, syrup):

  1. Orangethe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Raspberryfits less well
  4. Vanillafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, syrup. 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.

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