Name: Quince Honey
Ingredients: 3 pounds sugar; 1 pint water; 2 large quinces, peeled and grated

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 ↓

Quince Honey

Ingredients

3 pounds sugar
1 pint water
2 large quinces, peeled and grated

Directions

Make the syrup

Combine sugar and water in a pot to make a syrup.
Stir in the grated quinces.
Boil for 15 minutes.

Store

Can for winter use or pour into jelly glasses.

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.

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

Sugar: Provides sweetness and, as it dissolves and concentrates, gives the syrup its body.
Quinces: Add fragrance and flavor, and their natural pectin helps the syrup thicken and set.

“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.