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To Preserve Whole or Half Quinces

A method for preserving whole or halved quinces in a sweet jelly made from golden pippins and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and quince 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 Preserve Whole or Half Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pippin jelly

  1. In a pot, add the sliced golden pippins to 2 quarts of boiling water.

  2. Cover and boil quickly until the water turns into a thick jelly.

Prepare the quinces

  1. Scald the quinces.

Make the syrup and preserve

  1. For every pint of pippin jelly, add 1 lb of sugar and boil, skimming off any foam.

  2. Add whole quinces to the syrup and boil rapidly.

  3. For halved quinces, boil separately and skim the syrup.

  4. Test the syrup for jelling by placing a small amount in a glass before removing from heat.

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. Sugar + quincetop 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

Golden pippins
Their natural pectin thickens the water into a jelly that sets the preserve.
Sugar
Sweetens the preserve and helps it thicken and keep as the syrup cooks.
Quinces
Provide the main fruit, which becomes tender and flavourful as it cooks in the syrup.

The step that matters

Testing the syrup for jelling. Sugar and pectin must reach the right concentration to set. Testing a small amount on a cold glass shows whether it will gel before the pot is removed from heat, preventing a runny or overcooked result.

“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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