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Baked Quinces for Dessert

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Baked Quinces for Dessert

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut a slice from the blossom and stem end of each quince.

  3. Place the quinces in a dish and add enough water to cover them halfway.

  4. Cover the dish with another dish and bake until the quinces are soft.

  5. Let the quinces cool in a cool place.

  6. Once cooled, transfer the quinces to a glass dish.

  7. Add more water to the baking dish, then add sugar to sweeten.

  8. Boil the mixture to create a syrup and pour it over the quinces.

  9. Before serving, add a teaspoon of currant or plum jelly on top of each quince and surround with whipped cream.

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

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

  2. Quince + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  5. Quince + creamtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together203 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quince, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quince, sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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