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Dessert

Quince Marmalade

A preserve made by stewing quince with water and sugar.

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 ↓

Quince Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Pare the quinces and cut them into quarters, removing the cores.

Stew and mash

  1. Place the fruit in a saucepan, cover with parings, and fill nearly with spring water.

  2. Cover the saucepan and stew over low heat until the quinces are soft and pink.

  3. Remove the quinces from the parings and mash them into a pulp using a mortar.

Weigh the pulp

  1. Measure the weight of the pulp and use the same amount of fine loaf sugar.

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

Full ripe quinces
Provide the fruit pulp, pectin and tart flavour that form the marmalade.
Fine loaf sugar
Sweetens the pulp and helps it set into a thick, preserved spread.
Spring water
Provides the liquid that softens the quinces during gentle stewing.

The step that matters

Stew over low heat until soft and pink. Gentle heat softens the firm quince flesh evenly without scorching it or breaking it down unevenly. Stewing covered keeps moisture in, so the fruit becomes tender enough to mash into a smooth pulp.

“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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