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Dessert

Orange Marmalade

A preserve made from sliced oranges and lemons boiled with water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the oranges and lemons into small pieces and mix them together.

  2. Add the water and let the mixture stand for 24 hours.

Cook and set

  1. Boil the mixture for 30 minutes, then let it stand for another 24 hours.

  2. Measure the mixture and add 6 cups of sugar for every cup of juice.

  3. Boil the mixture for 1 hour, or until it thickens on the spoon.

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

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 bitter peel and pectin-rich pulp that give marmalade its flavour and set.
Lemons
Add acidity and extra pectin, helping the marmalade brighten and set firmly.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and set as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil until it thickens on the spoon. Sugar and pectin set only when enough water has evaporated and the concentration is high. Stopping early leaves runny marmalade, while overcooking can make it stiff or dull.

“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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