Skip to main content
Dessert

Preseryed Quinces

A method of preserving quinces in sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Preseryed Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Pare and core the quinces, removing any knotty or defective parts.

  2. Cut the quinces into quarters or round slices.

  3. Place the quinces in a preserving kettle and cover them with the parings and a little water.

  4. Cover with a large plate to retain steam and boil until tender.

  5. Remove the quinces and strain the liquid through a bag.

Make the syrup

  1. For every pint of liquid, add 1 pound of loaf sugar.

  2. Boil the juice and sugar together for about 10 minutes, skimming well.

  3. Add the quinces to the boiling mixture and cook gently for 20 minutes.

  4. Once the sugar has penetrated the quinces, remove them and place in a glass jar.

  5. Pour the juice over the quinces.

Seal

  1. Seal the jar with brandy paper once cool.

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

Quinces
Form the fruit itself; cooking softens their firm flesh until tender and translucent.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens and, as a dense syrup, penetrates the fruit to preserve it.
Water
Creates the steaming and simmering liquid that softens the quinces before the syrup is made.

The step that matters

Simmering the quinces in the syrup. Cooking gently keeps the pieces whole while sugar slowly diffuses into the fruit. Boiling hard can break the quinces apart and toughen their texture.

“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

Quince JellyQuince Jelly131 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes