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Dessert

Quince Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with quince, ginger, cinnamon, sugar, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Quince Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quinces

  1. Scald the quinces until very tender.

  2. Pare the quinces and scrape off all the pulp.

Make the pudding

  1. Strew ginger, cinnamon, and enough sugar over the pulp to make it very sweet.

  2. In a bowl, combine the cream and egg yolks.

  3. Stir in enough quince pulp to achieve a proper thickness.

Bake

  1. Line a dish with the mixture and bake.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Quince + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together62 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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
Pulp gives the pudding its body and fruity, perfumed flavour.
Cream
Adds richness and fat for a smooth, soft texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken and set the mixture as it heats, giving a custard-like body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pulp and balances the quinces' natural tartness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the quince pulp to the right thickness. Egg yolks and cream set through gentle heat, so the amount of pulp decides the final texture. Too much pulp thins the custard and it may not set firmly when baked.

Swap the quince

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

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

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