Quince Paste

Yesterday’s quince bounty turned to membrillo. Quince smell of chamomile, pineapple, honey, and otherworldly flower blossoms. I still have way too many quince left, so any other suggestions for them are welcome! If you find yourself with a few quince this time of year, here’s the recipe I used for membrillo:

Peel 4 to 6 large quince. Cut into wedges, cut the core out, and place in a pot of water with the juice of one lemon squeezed into it. Bring to a boil and simmer until the quince are nice and soft, about 15 minutes. Drain them well and purée in a food processor until nice and smooth. Weigh the amount of quince purée with a food scale and then add equal parts sugar. I admit, for this batch I used less sugar than that. For my batch I had 1kg of puréed quince from 6 very large fruit and to that I added 850 grams of organic cane sugar. I probably could have used less sugar than that, but that affects how long it keeps. Place the quince purée and sugar back in a pot and cook on the stove over low heat, stirring often, until it thickens and reduces and turns a deep red color. This took over an hour for me. Pour into jars or a parchment-lined baking dish and let cool. It keeps for many months in the fridge. Slice it and spread on toast, serve it on a cheese board, and cut cubes of it and bake into a lemon cake, my favorite.

I have made this before with rapadura sugar and I found that the deep molasses flavor of rapadura overpowered the flavor of the quince and muddies the deep red color. So this time I really enjoyed making it with the lighter cane sugar.