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Dessert

Quince Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from peeled and sliced quinces cooked with water and sugar.

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 Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quince

  1. Peel and slice the quinces.

  2. Stew them gently in enough water to prevent burning until soft.

  3. Rub the softened quinces through a fine sieve into a preserving pan.

Make the marmalade

  1. Add 1 pound of sifted lump sugar for each pound of quince.

  2. Boil the mixture for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Test for doneness by placing a drop on a plate; if it sets in a minute or two, it's done.

  4. If not, boil a little longer.

Jar and store

  1. Cover the jars with brandy-dipped paper.

  2. Tie the paper down.

  3. Store the jars in a dry room.

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 pectin and tart flavour that give the marmalade its body and set.
Sifted lump sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and set as it boils.

The step that matters

Testing for doneness. Sugar and fruit pectin only set at the right concentration. Boiling too briefly leaves the marmalade runny, while overboiling can make it stiff and dull. A cold plate test shows whether it has reached a set.

“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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