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Dessert

Quince Honey

A sweet syrup made by cooking quince with sugar and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Towanda, Pa. Christ church. Young ladies society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Honey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grate one quince.

  2. Combine the grated quince, one pound sugar, and one half pint water in a pot.

Cook

  1. Cook, being careful not to boil long enough to thicken too much.

  2. Add quince one at a time.

By Towanda, Pa. Christ church. Young ladies society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + quincetop 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

Quince
Provides the main fruit flavor and natural pectin that helps the mixture set as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as the liquid reduces, helps give the honey its thick, syrupy body.

The step that matters

Stopping the cooking before it thickens too much. As water evaporates, sugar and pectin concentrate quickly. Boiling too long can make the mixture stiff or candy-like once it cools, so it should be removed while still pourable.

“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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