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Dessert

Quince Pudding

A dessert made from quince pulp, sugar, cinnamon, egg yolks, cream, boiled in a floured cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 199 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Quince Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Prepare 1 pound of ripe quinces to yield pulp.

  2. Mix the quince pulp with ½ pound of powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat 8 egg yolks and mix with 1 pint of cream.

  4. Combine the quince mixture with the egg and cream mixture.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into a floured cloth and boil.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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
Supply the main fruit flavor and pulpy body of the pudding.
Egg yolks
Thicken and bind the pudding as they heat, giving it a set, custard-like texture.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, producing a smooth, soft texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the pulp for even flavor.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice that complements the quince.

The step that matters

Boiling the floured cloth. Egg yolks can curdle and turn grainy when overheated, so the mixture should be kept at a controlled heat rather than rushed into a hard boil.

Swap the quince

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

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

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