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Dessert

Clear Orange Marmalade

A clear marmalade made from Seville oranges, orange rinds, 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 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 ↓

Clear Orange Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Wash and wipe the orange rinds clean.

  2. Cut the rinds into quarters.

  3. Boil the rinds in a large quantity of water until tender.

  4. Drain and scrape off the white skin and fibers while warm.

  5. Pound the rinds into a paste.

  6. Blend with the pulp and juice gradually to avoid lumps.

  7. Add the strained water from the seeds and mix well.

  8. Strain through a coarse sieve.

Cook the marmalade

  1. Boil the mixture without sugar for 15 to 20 minutes.

  2. Add half of the sugar.

  3. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

  4. Add the remaining sugar.

  5. Boil for another 15 to 20 minutes until thick and clear.

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 + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 oranges
Provide the bitter peel, pulp and juice that give marmalade its characteristic flavor and natural pectin.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, once dissolved and boiled, helps it set into a thick, clear preserve.
Orange rinds
Supply the peel that becomes the tender, chewy-textured strands and adds bitter aroma.

The step that matters

Adding the sugar in two portions. Sugar added too early or in one go can toughen the peel and slow setting, while boiling without it first lets the peel soften and pectin extract. Adding it in stages helps the mixture reach a proper set and clarity.

“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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