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Dessert

Quince Marmalade

A preserve made from ripe quinces, water, and sugar, cooked until tender and scalding, then poured into containers to dry.

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 and quarter the quinces, removing the cores.

  2. Place the fruit in a saucepan and cover with water.

Make the marmalade

  1. Cook until the quinces are tender.

  2. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.

  3. Heat the mixture until scalding hot, but do not let it boil.

Set

  1. Pour into plates or glasses and let it dry.

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 fruit, pectin and tart flavour that give the marmalade its body and character.
Double-refined sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, as it dissolves and thickens, helps the marmalade set firm.

The step that matters

Heat until scalding hot, without boiling. Boiling can scorch the sugar and fruit and cause the marmalade to darken or turn bitter. Gentle heat dissolves the sugar evenly while keeping the flavour clean.

“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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