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Dessert

Quince Preserves

A preserve made by cooking quinces in sugar syrup until they become tender and jelly-like.

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 ↓

Quince Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Allow quinces to mellow on shelves until fragrant.

  2. Wipe quinces clean and place them whole in a large kettle with plenty of water. Cover and parboil until softened.

  3. Remove quinces and let them cool. Pare and core them, keeping some whole and slicing others.

  4. Return quinces to a portion of the parboiling water and cook until tender enough to pass a straw through.

  5. Transfer cooked quinces to dishes to cool and firm up.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. In a separate pot, make a syrup with 1 pound of sugar and enough water to cover the quinces. Boil until clarified.

  2. Add quinces to the syrup in batches, covering with a plate to keep them light-colored. Boil slowly until they turn clear.

  3. Periodically remove quinces to cool on dishes, replacing them with others from the kettle until all are cooked.

  4. After removing the quinces, let the syrup boil until it jellies.

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
Provide the fruit and pectin that give the preserves their body and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, when boiled down, helps the syrup thicken and jelly.

The step that matters

Covering the quinces with a plate while they cook in syrup. Quince flesh darkens quickly when exposed to air and heat. A plate held under the syrup keeps the fruit submerged so it stays light-colored and cooks evenly.

“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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