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Quince Cordial

A sweet alcoholic cordial made from quince, white brandy, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Quince Cordial

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Pare the quinces and scrape them to the core, ensuring no seeds are included.

  2. Cover the scrapings in a tureen and let them sit for two days.

  3. Place the scrapings in a linen bag and squeeze out all the juice.

Make the cordial

  1. Measure the juice and mix it with an equal quantity of white brandy.

  2. For each pint of the mixture, add ½ pound of loaf sugar, along with a little cinnamon and cloves.

Infuse and bottle

  1. Transfer the mixture to a jug and let it infuse for two months.

  2. Filter the cordial through blotting paper and bottle it.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Quince + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Quince + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Provide the main fruit flavour and aroma once their juice is pressed out.
White brandy
Extracts aromatic compounds from the juice and helps preserve the finished cordial.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the fruit's natural tartness and helps preserve the cordial.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma during the infusion.
Cloves
Adds pungent, warm spice aroma during the infusion.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture infuse for the full two months. Alcohol slowly draws aroma and flavour out of the fruit and spices. Rushing this stage leaves the cordial thin and under-flavoured, so the full infusion time matters.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Quincethe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, cinnamon, clove. 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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