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Dessert

Casserole of Quinces

A baked dish of peeled quinces with sugar, water, cloves, cinnamon, and butter, served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Casserole of Quinces

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Peel and halve the quinces, removing the cores.

  2. Place the quinces in a buttered casserole or pie dish.

  3. Sprinkle sugar over the quinces, then add water, cloves, and cinnamon.

  4. Dot the top with pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with another dish lid and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Quince + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Quinces
Provide the fruit that softens and turns tender during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fruit take on a syrupy richness as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor across the top of the fruit.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma that pairs with the fruit's floral sweetness.

Swap the quince

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, clove, cinnamon, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Quincethe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, cinnamon, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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