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Dessert

Quince Custard

A custard made from quince juice, sugar, and egg yolks, simmered and thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Quince Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quince juice

  1. Peel the quinces.

  2. Simmer the peeled quinces in just enough water to cover until tender.

  3. Strain the juice through a jelly bag.

  4. Boil the juice with the sugar until dissolved.

Make the custard

  1. Gradually mix the hot juice with the beaten egg yolks.

  2. Pour the mixture into a heated jug.

  3. Place the heated jug in a saucepan of hot water.

  4. Stir over low heat until the custard thickens.

  5. Pour into glasses and serve.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Quince + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together222 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set and give it a rich, smooth body.
Quinces
Provide the fruity flavour and pectin-rich juice that gives the custard its base.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the juice and balances the natural tartness of the quince.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until the custard thickens. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the heat is too high or the custard is left unstirred, the proteins can curdle and turn grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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