Why it works: Sugar and quince 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 and Crabapple Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Combine 5 gallons of quince and crabapple juice with 30 pounds of granulated sugar.
Cook the mixture until it reaches 30 degrees Beaumes.
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.
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Sugar + quincetop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Granulated sugar
- Provides sweetness and, with the fruit pectin and acid, helps the juice set into a jelly.
- Quince and crabapple juice
- Supplies the fruit flavor, natural pectin and acidity that give the jelly its body and tang.
The step that matters
Cooking to 30 degrees Beaumes. Sugar concentration determines whether the jelly sets. Cooking drives off water until the syrup is dense enough to gel on cooling. Stopping too early leaves a runny jelly, while cooking too long can make it stiff or 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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