Quince jelly, a recipe for a delicious tasty spread

Quince jelly is, no doubt, one of the top ways to use those scrumptious fruits from your quince tree. This method allows you to enjoy your homemade jellies for many long months, a gift from a usually generous tree with a plentiful harvest.

Ingredients:

• 1¾ lbs of sugar for each 2 lbs of juice (800 g of sugar / kilo of juice)
• Quince fruits, depends on the harvest
• juice from 1 small lemon for every 2 lbs of juice (1 kg)
• 1 sliced vanilla sprig, also for every 2 lbs of juice (1 kg)

Equipment:

• a large pot
• a colander
• a muslin steeping bag (a tea towel can work too)
• jam jars

→ Also worth reading: Health benefits of quince

Picking quinces

Where you live matters a lot when harvesting quince. It’s important to pick them at the right time to have the biggest and ripest fruit possible. The ideal time is often signaled by the first fruit dropping to the ground. Another good reference is around the time the first frosts are hitting.

Quince jelly recipe

• Chop up the quinces into large pieces, taking good care to segregate the cores
• Place these cores in a small, sealed muslin which you will place together with the fruit during cooking. You want to cook the whole fruit, but easily remove pips and stems.
• Cover it all with water, and bring to a boil for one-two minutes.

• Let it drain overnight, or use a small press to extract the maximum amount of juice. This juice is what you measure to compute how much sugar you need.

→ Keep the remaining pulp to make delicious fruit jellies.

Let the resulting juice rest for 24 hours…… A day later, everything’s set to start the actual cooking.

Quince jelly cooking

• Add the sugar at a rate of 1¾ lbs for 2 lbs of juice (800 g for every 1 kg juice) along with lemon juice and a vanilla bean sliced and chopped into pieces.
• Bring the mixture to a boil and then cook for approximately 30 minutes while stirring with a wooden spoon.

Stop the cooking when the mixture starts to gel on the end of your spoon.

• Pot it and seal it.

Recipe offered by Chef Roger, our jam and jelly specialist.

• You can also find how to grow a quince tree in your garden