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Dessert

Quince Honey

A sweet preserve made by cooking quince pulp with sugar and water until honey-like.

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 Honey

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe, pare, and grate the quinces.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine boiling water and sugar; stir until dissolved.

Cook and set

  1. Add the quince pulp and bring to a boil.

  2. Let it simmer for 15 minutes.

  3. Pour into glasses, cool, and cover.

  4. Once cold, it should resemble the color and consistency of honey.

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 fruit pulp and natural pectin that help the mixture thicken as it cooks.
Fine granulated sugar
Sweetens the mixture and, as it cools, helps it thicken to a syrupy honey-like consistency.

The step that matters

Simmer until thickened. Sugar and quince pectin only set into a honey-like consistency once the mixture has cooked long enough and then cooled. Stopping early leaves a thin syrup that may not thicken.

“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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