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Dessert

Quince Souffle

A baked dessert of quince puree, eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger 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 Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quince

  1. Pare, core, and quarter the quinces.

  2. Boil the quinces until soft, then drain and rub through a sieve.

Make the soufflé

  1. Add the beaten egg yolks, milk, sugar, and spices to the quince puree.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish and bake.

  3. When almost done, spread a meringue made from the egg whites sweetened with 4 tablespoons of sugar on top.

  4. Brown the meringue in the oven.

  5. Serve hot or cold.

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Provide the main fruit flavour and the bulk of the puree that forms the base.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while whipped whites build the airy meringue topping.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the quince puree, softening the set texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the puree and the meringue, and helps the meringue hold its structure.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. The meringue should be added only when the dish is almost done, so it browns without the soufflé base overbaking and drying out. Watch it closely, since sugar darkens quickly in the oven.

Swap the quince

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

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

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