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To Make Quince Marmalade

A preserve made by stewing quinces with sugar and then boiling the pulp into marmalade.

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 ↓

To Make Quince Marmalade

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the quince

  1. Cut the quinces into quarters and remove the cores.

  2. Place the quince quarters in a preserving pan.

  3. Cover the pan with the quince peels.

  4. Fill the pan with water.

  5. Place a plate on top of the pan to trap steam.

  6. Stew over low heat until the quinces are tender and pale pink.

  7. Strain the cooking water.

  8. Remove the peels from the strained water.

  9. Mash the quince quarters into a pulp using a mortar.

Make the marmalade

  1. For every pound of quince, add one pound of lump sugar.

  2. Melt the sugar with a little of the reserved cooking water.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Skim off any foam that rises to the surface.

  5. Add the quince pulp to the boiling mixture.

  6. Boil gently for 30 minutes.

  7. Stir constantly to prevent burning.

Pot and seal

  1. Transfer the marmalade to flat pots.

  2. Cover the pots with brandy papers.

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 sets into the marmalade's body and gives its flavour.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it thicken and set as it boils down.
Water
Softens the quinces during stewing and creates the cooking liquid for the syrup.

The step that matters

Stir constantly while boiling. Sugar-rich mixtures scorch easily on the base of the pan as water evaporates. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and prevents burnt flavour and sticking.

“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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