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Dessert

Pickled Quinces

Pickled quince is a preserved fruit made with sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, cloves, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pickled Quinces

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and core the quinces.

  2. Cut small quinces into quarters and large ones into eighths.

  3. Weigh the prepared fruit.

  4. Measure sugar in the proportion of ¾ pound for every pound of fruit.

  5. Layer the quinces and sugar alternately in a preserving kettle.

  6. Bring to a slow boil.

Cook and pack

  1. Once boiling, add the spices and vinegar.

  2. Boil for 6 minutes.

  3. Remove the fruit with a slotted spoon.

  4. Spread it on flat dishes, leaving the syrup to boil until it thickens.

  5. Pack the fruit into airtight glass jars.

  6. Fill to the top with boiling syrup.

  7. Seal tightly.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Quince + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Quince + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Firm flesh that holds its shape and turns tender and fragrant after cooking in syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out liquid to form the syrup, helping preserve it.
Strong vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and helps preserve the fruit.
Whole cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet aroma to the syrup and fruit.
Cloves
Adds pungent, warm aroma to the syrup and fruit.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm, nutmeg-like aroma to the syrup and fruit.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup until it thickens. The fruit is removed first, so the syrup must reduce enough to thicken and coat the fruit. Sealing it hot in airtight jars helps create a vacuum that preserves the pickle.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (quince, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against quince, sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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