Skip to main content
Dessert

Quince Pudding

A baked quince custard made with quince pulp, sugar, spices, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Quince Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the quince

  1. Scald the quinces until tender, then peel and scrape off the pulp.

Make the pudding

  1. Mix the pulp with sugar, ginger, and cinnamon.

  2. In a bowl, combine the cream and egg yolks, then stir into the quince mixture until thick.

  3. Butter a baking dish, pour in the mixture, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until 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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Quince + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 pulp that gives the pudding its body and flavour.
Egg yolks
Set the custard and thicken the mixture as they cook.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the quince.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Egg yolks set through gentle heat; if the oven is too hot or the pudding bakes too long, the custard can curdle or turn grainy and watery. Pull it once the centre just holds its shape.

Swap the quince

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger, cinnamon, cream, egg, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, cinnamon, cream, egg, butter. 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesQuince JellyQuince Jelly131 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes