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Dessert

Quince and Apple Marmalade

A preserved fruit spread made from quince juice and apples, sweetened with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and apple work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Quince and Apple Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marmalade

  1. Combine quince juice and apples in a preserving pan.

  2. Simmer gently until apples are soft.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in sugar until dissolved.

  4. Return to heat and boil quickly for 20 minutes, stirring well to prevent burning.

Jar and store

  1. Pour hot marmalade into glasses or jars and cover.

  2. Store in a cool, dry place.

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 + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Quince juice
Provides the base liquid and the tart, distinctive flavor of the marmalade.
Apples
Add pectin and body, helping the marmalade thicken as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it set by binding water and pectin.

The step that matters

Boiling quickly for 20 minutes. Stirring well keeps the sugar from scorching on the bottom of the pan. A fast, steady boil drives off water so the marmalade thickens and sets rather than staying runny.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. 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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