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Dessert

Baked Quinces

A baked dessert of quinces stewed in water, sweetened with sugar, and served with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,444 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Baked Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and stew

  1. Pare and quarter the quinces, removing the seeds.

  2. Stew the quinces in clear water until a straw can pierce them.

Bake

  1. Place the quinces in a baking dish and add ½ cup of sugar for every 8 quinces.

  2. Pour the cooking liquid over the quinces and cover tightly.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

Make the syrup and serve

  1. Remove the quinces and place them in a covered dish.

  2. Return the syrup to the saucepan.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes.

  4. Pour the syrup over the quinces and let them cool.

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. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Their firm flesh softens during stewing and baking, becoming tender and sliceable.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as the syrup boils down, gives it body and sweetness.

The step that matters

Stew until a straw can pierce the quinces. Raw quince is hard and tough. Heat softens its cell walls and pectin, so the fruit becomes tender. Stop too early and the centre stays firm; cook too long and the pieces break down.

“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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