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Quince Marmalade

A preserve made by boiling quinces with sugar and water, then straining and setting.

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 ↓

Quince Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and cut quinces into small pieces, coring but not peeling them.

  2. Combine quinces, sugar, and water in a pot.

Cook

  1. Boil slowly for 2 hours, stirring and mashing until fine.

  2. Strain the mixture through a colander.

Set

  1. Pour into glasses or bowls to set.

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
Provide the fruit pectin and tart flavor that help the marmalade thicken and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps the mixture thicken and keep as a preserve.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 2 hours, stirring and mashing until fine. Slow cooking lets the quince break down and its pectin release gradually, while stirring prevents scorching on the bottom. Thickening happens as water evaporates and sugar concentrates, so stopping early leaves the marmalade runny.

“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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