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Canned Apples and Quinces

Canned apples and quinces are preserved fruit jars made by cooking fruit, layering, and sealing with a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and quince 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 ↓

Canned Apples and Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the fruit

  1. Cook quinces in enough water to cover them until tender.

  2. Remove quinces and cook apples in the same water.

Pack and seal

  1. Layer quinces and apples alternately in jars.

  2. Dissolve sugar in water to make a syrup and pour over the fruit.

  3. Let stand for 12 hours.

  4. Heat thoroughly and seal in cans.

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. Apple + quincetop 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 tender during cooking.
Apples
Soft fruit that cooks down quickly, adding bulk and mild flavor alongside the quinces.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and syrup, and helps preserve the fruit's texture and flavor.

The step that matters

Heat thoroughly and seal in cans. Fruit must be heated through so the contents reach a temperature that keeps them safe and stable in storage. Incomplete heating or a poor seal can let spoilage organisms survive and grow.

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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