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Quince Marmalade

A quince marmalade made by boiling quinces, extracting juice, and simmering with 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 juice

  1. Quarter some inferior quinces and boil them in enough water to nearly cover them until they begin to break.

  2. Strain the juice from the boiled quinces.

Make the marmalade

  1. For the marmalade, use ½ quart of juice for each pound of fresh quinces.

  2. Simmer the quinces gently until perfectly tender.

  3. Press the quinces with the juice through a coarse sieve.

  4. Put the mixture into a clean pan and boil until it forms almost a dry paste.

  5. Add ¾ lb of powdered sugar for each pound of quinces and ½ quart of juice.

  6. Boil the marmalade for 30 minutes, stirring gently without stopping until it is firm and bright in color.

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
Provide the pectin and tart flavour that give the marmalade its body and set.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken into a firm, glossy paste as it boils.
Quince juice
Carries the fruit's pectin and adds liquid so the quinces can be cooked and pressed smooth.

The step that matters

Boiling the marmalade to a dry paste. Boiling off water concentrates the sugar and pectin so the marmalade sets firm. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and dull its bright colour. Stirring constantly prevents sticking and burning on the bottom of the pan.

“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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