The wonderful Dot, chef extraordinaire, dropped around a bag of ripe yellow quinces last week. Pete and I were pretty excited – we’ve bought lots of quince paste in the past, but had never attempted making our own.
After some research, we decided to try our hand at quince jelly – a process which involved washing and chopping up the whole fruit, then boiling it down to mush in water. Like apple jelly, the whole lot is then drained through calico and allowed to drip through. We were surprised by how viscous the quince juice was – it didn’t drip much at all – and the calico was probably too thick for this purpose. We weren’t able to squeeze the fruit pulp, as that creates cloudy jelly, so Pete reboiled the quinces in more water and let them drain a second time to get more liquid out of them. The quinces produced a wonderful aroma on cooking – a gorgeous, sweet, floral scent which lingered in the kitchen for ages.
The drained juice was boiled up, lemon juice, sugar and homemade pectin added and this gorgeous red jelly was the end result.
I’d read on the internet that it was possible to reuse all the pulp to make quince paste, so I dutifully dug out the food mill and processed all the leftovers, discarding the seeds and skins. What I hadn’t read was how gritty the pulp actually is – I ended up having to sieve the puree before putting it all into a large baking tray, with sugar, and allowing it to bake for several hours in the oven until thick. The quince paste is delicious and worth the effort (just), but I can see why people pay lots of money to buy it!
It’s astonishing how much flavour the quinces had to offer. We were able to use every last bit of them to produce nine jars of jelly and four jars of paste!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Celia…I have almost 5 pound of gorgeous ripe quinces that I found at my local grocer (priced at 99 cents a pound…snapped them right up). I plan on spending Labor Day making quince jelly and paste. I will aslo be finishing up my crabapple jelly & crab apple pectin (have a crab apple bounty in my front yard – even the deer and raccoons can’t eat them all)…both are simmering away right now,, and I am getting ready to strain them soon & allow them to drain while I sleep. The house smells divine. I have never made cooked jelly or jam before…never got past strawberry freezer jam. I also have some gorgeous nectarines and apricots that I plan on vacuum sealing and freezing until I can find more jam-n-jelly time! I told you that you inspire me!!
Anyway, I was wondering what quantity of water you added back to the cooked quince to start the process of paste making? I found a recipe at http://aweebitofcooking.co.uk/2007/10/22/membrillo-quince-paste/ and it says for 2 kg of fruit to use 500ml water….but that is if you are starting with raw fruit. Can you provide any insight? Best wishes from the Bluegrass State. I will try to remember to take some photos of my finished product. Cheers, Sara
Oh Sara, I’m so sorry, I wish I could remember!! We made this such a long time ago. The quince jelly is quite easy – I’ve had a post on it drafted for ages but never got around to posting it up. From memory, though, the paste is hard work – if you want it smooth, you have to sieve the paste first to get the grit out of it, and that pretty much ruins your sieve in the process. I don’t think I added any water to the quince puree – just a bit of lemon juice and sugar, I think. Maybe not even lemon juice. You could add a bit of water if it’s very dry to help dissolve the sugar, but the aim is to dry it out in the oven, so you probably don’t want it too wet. It was such a palaver that I’m not sure we’d make quince paste again (jelly, definitely yes!).
When making the quince jelly, we needed to add pectin to get it to set – we used homemade, but you could probably use packet pectin – just be careful to follow the instructions carefully and not boil it too long!
Good luck!