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Dessert

Orange Marmalade

A preserve made from peeled oranges and lemons, water, and sugar, cooked until jelly-like.

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 the fruit

  1. Peel 4 lemons and cut the thick end of the rind off the others.

  2. Cut the ends off the oranges and remove the navel, then cut them in half lengthwise and slice very thin.

  3. Slice the remaining lemons the same way, removing the seeds as you go.

  4. Measure the sliced fruit in cups and add 3 cups of water for each cup of fruit.

  5. Combine everything in a large agate kettle and let it stand for 24 hours.

Cook and set

  1. After 24 hours, cook the mixture until tender enough to mash between your fingers.

  2. Remove from heat and let it sit for another 24 hours.

  3. Measure the liquid and add 1 cup of white sugar for every cup of liquid and fruit.

  4. Cook until it thickens to a jelly-like consistency, about 45 minutes, without covering the kettle.

  5. Pour into glasses or jars while hot.

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

Navel oranges
Provide the main bitter-sweet fruit flavor and pectin-rich peel and pulp for the marmalade.
Lemons
Add acidity and extra pectin, which help the marmalade brighten in flavor and set.
White sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, as it cooks down, helps it thicken into a jelly-like set.

The step that matters

Cook until it thickens to a jelly-like consistency. Sugar and fruit pectin set together only at the right concentration. Cooking too briefly leaves it runny, while overcooking can make it stiff and sugary.

“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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