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Dessert

Quince Apple Preserves

A preserve made from quince and apples cooked with water and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Apple Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Peel, core, and cut quinces into eighths.

  2. Place quinces in a preserving kettle and cover with water.

  3. Cook until a fork easily pierces the quinces.

  4. Reduce heat to simmer.

Make the syrup and add apples

  1. Add enough sugar to create a rich syrup.

  2. Cook slowly for 1 to 2 hours after adding sugar.

  3. Peel, core, and quarter the apples.

  4. Remove quinces from the syrup.

  5. Add apples to the syrup.

  6. Cook until the apples are tender.

  7. Return quinces to the kettle.

Finish and seal

  1. Mix carefully.

  2. Let simmer until the mixture is a rich, deep red color.

  3. Pour into fruit jars.

  4. Seal while hot.

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

Quinces
Firm fruit that holds its shape and turns a deep red during long simmering.
Apples
Add body and pectin-rich softness that helps the preserve set.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, dissolved into a syrup, helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Cooking the quinces until fork-tender before adding sugar. Quinces are hard and need thorough cooking in water before sugar is added; sugar added too early can toughen the fruit and slow softening, so the fruit may stay firm.

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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