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Quince Jelly

A jelly made from quince refuse, apples, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Quince Jelly

Why it works: Quince and apple work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Quince Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juice

  1. Fill a kettle with refuse quinces, parings, cores, and seeds, and cover with water.

  2. Add 6 sour apples to each gallon of quinces.

  3. Boil all together, then strain the juice through a flannel bag.

Make the jelly

  1. For every quart of juice, add 1 pint of sugar.

  2. Boil rapidly until the mixture drops short from the spoon.

  3. Heat the glasses and fill them with the jelly.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Quince + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Quinces
Provide the main fruit flavour and natural pectin that helps the juice set into jelly.
Sour apples
Add extra pectin and acidity, supporting the jelly's set and bright flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and, with boiling, helps the jelly set and keeps it preserved.

The step that matters

Boil rapidly until the mixture drops short from the spoon. Boiling concentrates the juice and sugar until pectin and acid can form a gel. Under-boiling leaves a runny jelly, while overboiling can make it stiff or caramelised.

Swap the quince

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Apricotfits about as well
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar. 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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