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Quince Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from boiled quinces and 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 quinces

  1. Quarter some inferior quinces.

  2. Boil them in enough water to nearly cover them until they begin to break.

  3. Strain the juice from the quinces.

  4. Use ½ pint of juice for each pound of fresh quinces.

  5. Simmer the quinces gently until perfectly tender.

  6. Press them with the juice through a coarse sieve.

Make the marmalade

  1. Put the mixture into a clean pan.

  2. Boil until it forms almost a dry paste.

  3. Add ¾ lb of powdered sugar for each pound of quinces and ½ pint of juice.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes, stirring gently without ceasing.

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 character.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and, as it boils down, helps it thicken to a paste-like set.
Juice
Carries the quince flavour and moisture so the fruit can be pressed and cooked to a smooth pulp.

The step that matters

Boil until it forms almost a dry paste. Cooking the pulp down removes water and concentrates the sugar and pectin. Stopping too early leaves it runny, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and make it bitter.

“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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