Fruit dessert Winter Gluten-free

Quince in syrup

Name: Quince in syrup
Prep time: 75 min
Cook time: 90 min
Total time: 165 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients: 1000 g Quinces (2 large); 250 g Sugar; 400 ml Water; 6 pcs Cloves; 15 g Lemon juice; 100 g Clotted cream; 30 g Walnuts, crushed

The red of a quince is not a dye: over long, gentle heat the fruit’s own colourless tannins turn into red pigment.

Desserts · Turkish · For guests · Seasonal

165 minTime

581Kcal / serving

2325Total kcal

Preparation: 15 min
Cooking: 90 min
Resting: 60 min
Difficulty: Needs attention
Cost: Cheap
Season: Autumn, Winter

Where this dish comes from

Quince in syrup is a Turkish dessert of autumn and winter; quinces reach the market between October and December and are hard and astringent raw. Cooked, they soften and turn from white to deep red. The colour comes from proanthocyanidins in the fruit: heated for a long time in an acidic medium, they become red anthocyanidins. Cloves and the quince’s own seeds go into the same pan; the gel around the seeds is rich in pectin and thickens the syrup. Clotted cream and walnuts on top is the classic Turkish way to serve it.

Method

Before the heat goes on

Wash the quinces, rub off the fuzz, leave the skins on, halve them lengthwise and scoop out the cores with a spoon. Keep the seeds.

You will need: A wide lidded oven dish or pan · A sharp knife and a spoon

Set the quince halves cut side up in the dish, fill the hollows with sugar and scatter the rest over; add the seeds, the cloves, the lemon and the water.

Look for The water should come halfway up the quinces, not cover them.

Why The gel coating the seeds is rich in pectin; it passes into the syrup and thickens it. The lemon keeps the medium acidic, which helps both the red colour form and the pectin set.

Starch still asleep The granules are just floating there doing nothing. No body arrives before 62 °C.
Cover with a lid or foil and cook at 170 °C in the oven, or over a low flame, for 75 to 90 minutes, basting now and then.

Look for The quinces should be deep pink-red, and a knife should slide in without resistance.

Why The red comes with time: turning proanthocyanidins into anthocyanidins takes hours, and a quick, hot cook softens the fruit but leaves it yellowish. The lid stops the syrup evaporating and the base catching.

If it went wrong

If they are still pale after ninety minutes, keep the lid on and give them 20 to 30 minutes more, adding a little hot water if needed. If the syrup has caramelised and thickened too far, stir in a ladle of hot water.

Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back

Caramelisation has begun Sugar is breaking into hundreds of new aroma molecules: nutty, faintly bitter, deep in colour. no way back
Let the quinces cool in their syrup, pick out the seeds and cloves, and at the table fill the hollows with clotted cream and scatter walnuts over.

Look for The cooled syrup should run slowly off a spoon and be glossy red.

Why As it cools the pectin brings the syrup towards a jelly and the fruit keeps drinking it. The seeds are not eaten; their work ended in the pan.

What the model could follow

This recipe was run through the engine step by step — what goes in when, and at what temperature and for how long. The reactions above come from that run.

peak 170 °C · 155 minutes · engine 1.0.0 · confidence low

Servings

4

Ingredients

1000 g Quinces (2 large)
250 g Sugar
400 ml Water
6 pcs Cloves
15 g Lemon juice
100 g Clotted cream
30 g Walnuts, crushed

What did you think

Who is eating

Everyone A baby under one Pregnant A child An athlete Someone living with diabetes

We hold no safety rule for this group that a dish could break — training, or an age, does not make food dangerous. The thresholds below are about the person rather than about the dish.

Not about the dish — about the person

Protein in a day

0.83 g/kg

An adult Context established

Per day, 0.83 g for every kilogram of body weight — about 58 g a day for somebody of 70 kg. This is a floor: the amount that prevents a shortfall, not an optimum.

European Food Safety Authority, Dietary Reference Values for protein, 2012

Salt in a day

5 g 2000 mg

An adult Context established

Under 5 g of salt a day, which is under 2000 mg of sodium — just under a teaspoon. A label usually gives sodium, and the two are not the same number: salt is about 2.5 times the sodium.

World Health Organization, Salt reduction

What is done, and what is not: There is no calorie target here: daily energy need depends on age, body composition and training volume, and a figure written without them is a guess that looks certain. The protein calculation is offered because it rests on a sourced range and a single input. Supplements, and rapid weight cutting in weight-class sports, are conversations to have with a professional.

This choice is not stored anywhere.

Diets

Gluten-free Suitable as it is
Vegan Not suitable Kaymak (pasteurised)
Vegetarian Suitable as it is
Lactose-free Suitable if the label checks out Strained or aged: most of the lactose is gone, but not all of it.
Diabetes-friendly It depends Free sugar. What it does to blood glucose depends on the portion and on what is eaten with it.

This verdict comes from the recipe\u2019s own ingredient list. The label on a packaged ingredient is always the last word.

Calculated nutrition

581.2 kcal
2.4 g Protein
102.9 g Carbohydrate
21 g Fat
5.4 g Fibre

Per serving, computed from raw weights as bought. Cooking drives water off and sometimes adds fat, and neither is accounted for.

Vitamins and minerals · per serving

Vitamins

Vitamin A 210 µg · 26%
Vitamin C 39.6 mg · 49% ~
B1 (thiamin) 0.08 mg · 7%
B2 (riboflavin) 0.14 mg · 10%
B3 (niacin) 0.59 mg · 4% ~
B5 (pantothenic acid) 0.29 mg · 5%
Vitamin B6 0.15 mg · 11%
Folate 16.8 µg · 8%
Vitamin B12 0.03 µg · 1%

Minerals

Potassium 548 mg · 27%
Calcium 49.6 mg · 6%
Phosphorus 79.2 mg · 11%
Magnesium 34.8 mg · 9%
Iron 2.1 mg · 15%
Zinc 0.39 mg · 4%
Copper 0.48 mg · 48%
Selenium 2.3 µg · 4% ~
Sodium 18.8 mg · 1%

% of daily need for:

Percentages are shares of the reference values printed on food labels (Turkish Food Codex labelling regulation, Annex 13 (identical to EU Regulation 1169/2011, Annex XIII)), not a personal requirement. For sodium the reference is a ceiling. Computed from raw ingredients; cooking lowers some vitamins. "~": not measured in some of the ingredients.

Not shown for lack of data: Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Manganese.

USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy · ANSES Ciqual 2025 · CoFID 2021 · Swiss FCDB 7.1

composition figures unsourced · held in the system

Nutri-Score

Not enough data. Nutri-Score needs its inputs for at least 90% of the weight; short here: Sugars. Left blank rather than guessed.

After the heat goes off

Serving

At room temperature or cold, a spoon of clotted cream and walnuts on each half.

Keeping · 5 days

Five days in the fridge in its syrup, without the cream.

Cooling and reheating

If you like it warm, five minutes in its syrup over a low flame; the cream goes on afterwards.

Freezes

Two months in its syrup in a sealed box; the texture softens a little.

What is left

Leftover quince and syrup can be mashed and eaten like jam on yoghurt or bread.

For a child

Soft cooked quince can be mashed for a child from twelve months; keep the syrup light in their share and grind the walnuts.

Where to go from here

The oven The method this recipe rests on
Quince What it does in heat, water and acid
Kaymak (pasteurised) What it does in heat, water and acid
Walnut What it does in heat, water and acid
Candied pumpkin Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Aşure, Noah’s pudding Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Zerde, saffron rice pudding Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
For guests Other recipes that answer the same need
Seasonal Other recipes that answer the same need

Taste profile

What it tastes like

The axes that define this recipe: sweet 40, aroma 60.

Sweet 40
Salty 5
Sour 24
Bitter 20
Umami 24
Heat 1
Richness 31
Aroma 60

This profile is computed rather than measured: the role-weighted average of its ingredients’ taste vectors, shifted by what the cooking does. The thin line is the database average on that axis.

Computed similarity