Skip to main content
Dessert

Quince Jelly

A sweet preserve made from quince fruit, cloves, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Quince Jelly

Why it works: Quince and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 164 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Quince Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Wash and stem the quinces.

  2. Cut the quinces up, including peelings and cores, and place them in a preserving kettle.

  3. Cover the quinces with cold water and add the cloves.

  4. Cook the mixture until the quinces are soft.

  5. Strain the mixture into a jelly bag to extract the juice.

  6. Measure the juice.

  7. Return the juice to the preserving kettle.

Make the jelly

  1. Use an equal quantity of sugar.

  2. Warm the sugar in the oven.

  3. Boil the juice for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Add the hot sugar to the boiling juice.

  5. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, removing any scum.

  6. Boil hard for 5 to 10 minutes.

  7. Pour the jelly into hot, sterilized glasses.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Clove + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

Clove and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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
Provide the pectin and tart flavour that give the jelly its set and character.
Sugar
Sweetens the jelly and, with boiling, helps it set into a firm gel.

The step that matters

Boil hard after adding the sugar. Quince juice needs a rolling boil with sugar dissolved to concentrate the sugar and activate the natural pectin, so the jelly sets rather than staying runny.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against quince, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Clove CakeClove Cake53 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes