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Dessert

Baked Quinces

A sweet dish of quinces stewed, baked, and served with a sugar syrup.

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 ↓

Baked Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Pare the quinces.

  2. Quarter the quinces.

  3. Remove the seeds.

  4. Stew the quinces in clear cold water until a straw can pierce them.

Bake

  1. Place the quinces in a baking dish.

  2. Add ½ cup sugar for every 8 quinces.

  3. Pour the cooking liquid over the quinces.

  4. Cover tightly.

  5. Steam in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

Make the syrup and serve

  1. Remove the quinces.

  2. Keep them warm in a covered bowl.

  3. Return the syrup to the saucepan.

  4. Boil the syrup for 20 minutes.

  5. Pour the syrup over the quinces.

  6. Cover to cool.

  7. Serve cold.

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
Soften into tender fruit when stewed and steamed, forming the body of the dish.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, once the syrup is boiled down, gives it body and sweetness.

The step that matters

Stew the quinces until a straw can pierce them. Raw quince flesh is hard and astringent. Stewing softens the fruit fully before baking, so the steaming step finishes the texture rather than having to make up for an undercooked centre.

“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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