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Dessert

To Preserve Quinces

A method for preserving quinces in sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Preserve Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Pare and core the quinces.

  2. Place the quinces in cold water for about 30 minutes, then remove them.

  3. Coddle them in boiling water for 30 minutes.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Wet 4 lbs of sugar with a little water.

  2. Skim the mixture well.

  3. Add the quinces to the sugar mixture.

  4. Cover tightly until they are cooked through.

  5. Tie a few seeds in a piece of cloth.

  6. Boil them with the syrup to help thicken it.

  7. Reserve ½ lb of sugar.

  8. Add it to the syrup once the quinces are cooked.

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

Quinces
Supply the fruit and natural pectin that help the preserve set and thicken.
Sugar
Sweetens and preserves the fruit, and its concentration helps the syrup set.

The step that matters

Adding the reserved sugar after the quinces are cooked. Sugar slows the softening of fruit. Adding the reserved sugar only once the quinces are tender lets them cook through fully before the syrup becomes concentrated, so the fruit stays soft rather than tough.

“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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