Why it works: Sugar and quince 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 ↓
Quince Honey
Ingredients
Directions
Make the honey
Make a syrup by combining sugar and water in a pot.
Stir in the peeled and grated quinces.
Boil for 15 minutes.
Store
Can the mixture for winter use or pour it into jelly glasses.
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.
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Sugar + quincetop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, once dissolved and boiled, thickens the mixture into a honey-like syrup.
- Quinces
- Supply the fruit flavor and natural pectin that helps the mixture set as it cooks.
The step that matters
Boil for 15 minutes. Boiling concentrates the sugar and drives off water so the pectin from the quinces can gel. Too short a boil leaves the mixture runny; too long can make it stiff and darken it.
“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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