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Orange Marmalade

A marmalade made from grated Seville orange rinds, lemon juice, and sugar, simmered until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 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 the fruit

  1. Grate the rinds of the oranges and cut them into quarters, removing the flesh and pips.

  2. Soak the rinds in cold water overnight.

  3. Boil the rinds until tender, then drain and cool them.

  4. Scrape out the white part of the rind and cut the remaining rind into thin chips.

Cook the marmalade

  1. Combine the pulp, juice, sugar, and rind chips in a preserving pan.

  2. Heat slowly, then boil for 30 minutes, skimming off any foam.

Jar

  1. Pour the marmalade into jars and seal.

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

Seville oranges
Peel, pith and pips supply pectin for setting, and the peel adds bitterness and aroma.
Lemons
Their juice adds acidity, which helps the pectin set and brightens the flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness, helps preserve the marmalade, and helps it set when boiled.

The step that matters

Heat slowly, then boil for 30 minutes. Heating slowly lets the sugar dissolve and reduces the risk of scorching on the base of the pan. A rolling boil then concentrates the sugar and activates the pectin, so the marmalade can set. Skimming removes foam that would cloud the finished preserve.

“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.

More orange marmalade recipes

Seville 44Pudding 17Clear 10Scotch 6Bitter 4 See all 487 →

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