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Dessert

Quince Cakes

A sweet dessert made from boiled quince pulp mixed with sugar, shaped into small cakes and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 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 ↓

Quince Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pulp

  1. Boil the quinces until soft.

  2. Rub the quince through a sieve to obtain 2 cups of pulp.

Make and dry the cakes

  1. Add ¾ pound of sifted white sugar to the pulp and mix well.

  2. Heat the mixture until scalding hot, but do not let it boil.

  3. Drop the mixture onto tins in the shape of small cakes.

  4. Dry the cakes in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C).

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

Quince pulp
Provides the bulk, flavor and natural pectin that lets the cakes set firm.
White sugar
Sweetens the pulp and helps it thicken into a stiff, sliceable paste as it cooks.

The step that matters

Heating without boiling. Heating the pulp and sugar until scalding hot, without boiling, dissolves the sugar and thickens the mixture gently. Boiling can scorch the sugar and make the texture grainy or the cakes uneven.

“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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