Ingredients
About 2 lbs quinces or japonica apples
Around 3 pints of water for every 2 lbs of fruit
Sugar (probably two bags of it)
A little vanilla essence if desired.
Method:
For the jelly:- Cut the quinces in quarters and get the pips out and any black dusty bits. No need to peel them or remove the cores. The peel and cores are where the pectin is.
- Put them in a large pan and add lots of cold water: around 3 pts for 2 lbs of fruit. If you don't have enough water there's not enough jelly and it's too strong.
- Bring to the boil and simmer until the fruit's tender (this seems to take very little time if they are ripe: maybe 15 to 30 minutes should do).
- Lay a large square of muslin in a large mixing bowl and spoon the fruit into it. Gather up the corners, tie it with string and hang the jelly bag over the bowl. Leave it to drip over night.
- Next day, set the bag of fruit aside (we use it for the quince paste).
- Measure the juice into a measuring jug.
- Weigh up sugar at the rate of 1 lb for each pint of juice.
- Put some jars to warm in the oven.
- Put the sugar and the juice into a pan, and boil it.
- Test it to see when it reaches the setting point, by the old fashioned methods or using a thermometer. In my experience it sometimes sets below the jam temperature.
- When it reaches setting point, remove it from the heat. Skim off the scum if any and save it for bread and jam for tea.
- Pot the jelly into the warm jars, and label it up.
For the paste (or quince comfits):
- Remove the fruit pulp from the muslin bag.
- Rub it through a steel sieve, in small batches, using a wooden spoon, until it is all rubbed. Wipe the pulp off the bottom of the sieve with a scraper.
- Discard the fibrous residue left in the sieve after each batch of rubbing.
- Weigh the resulting pulp. You should have around 1 lb or so.
- Weigh up 1lb of sugar for every 1 lb of pulp.
- Put the pulp and the sugar in a pan.
- Heat very gently to dissolve the sugar, and then simmer on very low heat for an hour and a half, until it is deep orange and thick. Add vanilla at the end of cooking if desired.
- Line the base of a small swiss roll tin with greaseproof paper. Spread the paste into the tin.
- Place in a warm dust-free place to dry, for about a week or two.
- Cut into pieces, to serve small slices with cheese or cold meat (as membrillo), or serve in small squares as sweets (medieval comfits) with coffee etc.
