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Simple Recipe for Marmalade

A preserved citrus spread made from bitter oranges, lemon, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange 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 ↓

Simple Recipe for Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the lemon thinly and combine it with the bitter oranges in a large bowl.

  2. Add 6 quarts of water and let the mixture sit overnight or for 36 hours.

Cook

  1. Boil the mixture rapidly for 2.5 hours.

  2. Add 7 to 8 pounds of white sugar and continue boiling for 1 hour.

  3. Remove all seeds and hard ends from the mixture.

  4. If using sweet oranges, add only the pulp to enhance the flavor.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Bitter orange + orangetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetal (cream, earthy).

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

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

  4. Bitter orange + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 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

Bitter oranges
Provide the characteristic bitter flavor and the pectin that helps the marmalade set.
Lemon
Adds acidity and extra pectin to support setting and brighten the flavor.
White sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and set as it boils.
Sweet oranges pulp
Adds extra orange flavor and body to the marmalade.

The step that matters

Removing all seeds and hard ends. Seeds and hard ends left in the mixture add bitterness and an unpleasant texture, and they can be hard to notice once the marmalade is cooked. Removing them before the sugar is added keeps the final texture smooth.

“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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