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Dessert

Candied Quinces

Quinces are boiled, sugared, and preserved in jars.

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 ↓

Candied Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Rub the quinces with a damp cloth.

  2. Peel the quinces.

  3. Core the quinces.

  4. Cut the quinces into several pieces.

  5. Tie the peels and cores in a muslin bag.

  6. Boil the bag with the quinces.

  7. Place the quinces and bag in a preserving kettle.

  8. Cover with boiling water.

  9. Boil slowly until tender.

  10. Drain the water.

  11. Let the quinces cool.

Pack with sugar

  1. Weigh the quinces.

  2. Use an equal weight of sugar.

  3. In glass jars, layer the sugar and quinces alternately.

  4. Seal the jars.

Make the jelly

  1. Save the boiling juice.

  2. Add an equal weight of sugar to the juice.

  3. Make it into jelly.

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

Firm quinces
Provide the fruit and pectin-rich flesh that becomes soft, sweet and set when candied.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and preserves it, drawing out moisture to form a thick syrup.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until tender. Quinces are very hard and need gentle, prolonged simmering so the flesh softens fully and absorbs water. Boiling too hard can break the pieces apart before they are tender.

“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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