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Dessert

Quince Marmalade

A preserve made from boiled quince and sugar, simmered until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 fruit

  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.

  3. Simmer the fresh quinces gently until perfectly tender, then press them with the juice through a coarse sieve.

Make the marmalade

  1. In a clean pan, boil the mixture until it forms almost a dry paste.

  2. Add 3/4 lb of powdered sugar for each pound of quinces and the half pint of juice, then boil for 30 minutes, stirring gently without ceasing.

Richer version

  1. For a richer marmalade, use equal weights of fruit and sugar and boil for a shorter time.

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
Supply pectin and tart flavor, which help the marmalade set and taste fruity.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and set as it boils.
Juice from boiled quinces
Carries pectin and flavor from the boiled fruit into the marmalade.

The step that matters

Stirring during the 30-minute boil. Once the sugar and juice go in, the mixture thickens and can scorch on the base of the pan. Constant gentle stirring prevents sticking and burning, and the sugar helps the marmalade set as it boils.

“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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