Skip to main content
Dessert

Quince Paste, for Dessert

A sweet paste made from boiled quince and sugar, formed into a firm, dry confection.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Paste, for Dessert

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Pare, core, and quarter the quinces.

  2. Boil them in just enough water to cover until soft.

  3. Drain and rub the quinces through a sieve.

Make the paste

  1. Stir the pulp over a clear fire until it forms a dry paste.

  2. Weigh the paste and mix in an equal weight of powdered sugar.

  3. Stir continuously over a gentle fire until firm and it pulls away from the sides of the saucepan.

  4. Press the mixture into shallow pans and let it cool.

Cut and store

  1. Once cool, cut into shapes and dry in a cool oven if necessary until moisture-free.

  2. Store in tin boxes between sheets of writing paper.

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

Ripe quinces
Provide the fruit pulp that sets into the paste when cooked down.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks down, helps the paste set firm and keep.

The step that matters

Stir continuously over a gentle fire until firm. The sugar-rich pulp can scorch on the bottom of the pan and burn, and it must be cooked long enough to lose enough water to set firm. Constant stirring over gentle heat prevents scorching while the paste thickens.

“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.

You might also like

Quince JellyQuince Jelly131 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes