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Quince Marmalade

A sweet preserve made from boiled quinces, their juice, and powdered 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. Pare, core, and quarter the quinces, then boil them in enough water to nearly cover them until they begin to break.

  2. Strain the juice from the quinces.

  3. Use ½ pint of juice for each pound of fresh quinces, cutting out any hard parts around the cores.

Make the marmalade

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

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

  3. Add ¾ lb of powdered sugar for each pound of quinces and the ½ pint of juice, then boil for 30 minutes, stirring continuously.

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 pulp that softens, thickens and sets into the marmalade.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it boils down, helps the marmalade thicken and set.

The step that matters

Boiling the pulp to a dry paste with continuous stirring. Quince pulp is thick and sugars scorch easily on the base of the pan. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and prevents burnt flavour, while the long reduction concentrates the pectin and sugar so the marmalade sets.

“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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