Skip to main content
Dessert

Quince Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from mashed quince, butter, sugar, eggs, and brandy, baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Quince and brandy work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 91 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Quince Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the quinces and mash them very fine.

  2. When nearly cold, add the butter and sugar beaten to a cream.

  3. Whisk the eggs until very light and stir them into the mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover your pie plates with pastry.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pastry.

  3. Bake.

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 + brandytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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 pudding's body.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, fine texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps cream the butter into a smooth base.
Eggs
Set the filling as it bakes and add lightness when whisked.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs until very light. Whisking incorporates air into the eggs, which gives the filling lift and a lighter texture once baked. Stirring them in gently keeps that air from being lost.

Swap the quince

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, brandy. 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

Quince JellyQuince Jelly131 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipesBrandy PuddingBrandy Pudding13 recipes