QUINCE: Rare, weird & wonderful fruit
How to turn the strangest fall fruit into the most amazing quince jelly, marmalade and rich, aromatic quince paste
Words and Photos
By CINDA CHAVICH
Rock hard and literally inedible when raw, a golden, pear-shaped quince is a fruit like no other. It’s found around the Mediterranean and here on Vancouver Island where old trees in some of our historic neighbourhoods are brimming with these unusual orbs in late fall.
You’ll be lucky if you find them at a farm market or grocery store — as, these days at least, few people know exactly how to draw out this odd fruit’s addictive secrets.
But I did enjoy a fabulous quince plate at a recent dinner at the newly opened restaurant at Sooke Harbour House, where master pastry chef Matthias Conradi picked quince from trees on the historic oceanside property and offered a dish he dubbed “Harbour House Quince 6 Ways”.
From his ethereal quince mousse dessert set on a bed of reduced quince puree, to the quenelle of creamy quince sorbet and garnish of translucent quince “leather”, it was an impressive finish to chef Leroy Borrega’s multi-course meal.
Our long table — set in the historic hotel’s private room overlooking the calm Sooke Basin and distant mountain views — was decorated with fall leaves and whole golden quince, which truly set the scene for fall supper to introduce the inn’s new culinary and management team.
A fruit that grows on the hotel property, it's just one local ingredient you can expect to find on the new Sooke Harbour House dinner menu from the inn's new executive chef Leroy Borrega, recently arrived from Calgary and keen to explore the region's bounty.
Quince is a fruit of contrasts and sometimes described as a “golden enigma” or botanical paradox — a tempting brilliant yellow, once its oddly downy exterior is washed away, and richly aromatic, but so hard and astringent when raw, that even local deer leave them on the ground.
Turning from creamy white to amber and ruby red once cooked, quince reveals its amazing secrets to those who take the time to explore the wonders of this rare and strange fruit.
TRICKS TO TAME A WILD FRUIT
Quince is most often used to create a glistening garnet coloured jelly or jam, or cooked down into a thick paste that can be cut into cubes, the Spanish membrillo you’ll find alongside an aged cheese or pate de coing, the sugared jellies on a plate of Christmas sweets in Provence.
Because the cores and skins of this rare fruit are loaded with pectin, you don’t need to add anything but sugar to create a lovely dense preserve.
But they are notoriously difficult to peel and core, so many cooks simply pass on a windfall of quince.
It’s a real shame because quince truly is delicious and, I think, worth the work, especially if you lean into some of the acquired wisdom shared in the culinary world.
One essential trick is baking or boiling the fruit before attempting to peel it. Just stand your quince in a baking pan and bake in a 350F oven for 20-30 minutes, until the skins turn a light brown, then cool and proceed with your recipes.
The skin is now easy to peel away and the fruit can be cut and cored like an apple. Unlike the raw flesh, which is so woody it can be downright dangerous to process, this par-baked quince is still firm but soft enough to slice.
Don’t’ toss your peels and cores — place them in a pot, cover with water and simmer until tender, then strain the pectin-rich liquid over the chopped flesh to begin cooking your jam or jelly.
At this point, you can also chop or slice the fruit and put it into the freezer to use in future baking and preserving projects, which is a boon to those with a fall windfall of quince.
WHO COOKS QUINCE?
A chance purchase of quince jelly from Maison Preserve Co. at the Moss Street Market sent me down a rabbit hole, looking for new ways to cook and enjoy quince.
On the label of her quince jelly jar Maison maker Jennifer Davidson suggests you “spread it on buttery croissants, scones and toasted crumpets” or use it on charcuterie and cheese boards, especially paired with aged, salty and stronger cheeses such as blue and Manchego, or creamy chevre, Brie and Camembert.
As I couldn’t find any quince sellers at the market, Jennifer directed me to Dan's Farm & Country Market in Saanichton or smaller local grocers like The Root Cellar.
I didn’t venture to either retailer but found a guy selling his garden-grown quince online, and drove up to his Gordon Head home and picked up about 8 pounds for fresh quince for 10 bucks.
THE COOKBOOK QUEENS WEIGH IN
So, now, to the best recipe question. There are plenty of recipes for quince jam and marmalade on the internet, even some savoury stews with quince and duck or lamb.
I wanted to make some jam and possibly even prepare the gelled membrillo for holiday cheese plates, and those little sugared cubes of quince sweets.
First stop was my own extensive library of new and vintage cookbooks, where I actually found very few mentions of this fruit, beyond fruit jam in a couple of preserving books, and some mentions of cooking with quince in cookbooks focused on the south of France and Spain. Ignored by the Culinary Institute of America’s tome for professional chefs, quince is addressed in The Joy of Cooking in sweet preserved or baked, cored and filled with fruit, nuts and brown sugar (like Baked Apples), and cooked down into a thick German Quittenwurst paste to dry and cut into sugared sweets.
In Sicily, author Melissa Muller describes Sicilian cutugnata (cogognata), a “stiff paste that is traditionally dried in the sun under a sheet of cheesecloth”. After cooking the quince down with equal amounts of sugar, to a very stiff paste, it’s pressed into little 1-cup ceramic molds (though she says muffin tins are another alternative), and then cooled, turned out and further dried in a low oven to finish. Preserved like this, she says the cutugnata will keep at room temperature for several months.
In Spain this paste is known as membrillo and is a natural pairing to their aged Manchego cheese.
You’ll find quince paste in Middle Eastern and Latin American cuisine, too.
I also discovered that, like the German preserve, quince paste is a preserve popular throughout Eastern Europe — even made into an alcoholic eau de vie in the Balkans — which may be why I have some kind of innate, cultural muscle memory for this fragrant fruit.
Just out of the oven (prebaking before peeling), I was drawn to the sweet fragrance of the quince, tiny beads of juice escaping from the skin created a perfume reminiscent of baked pears, honey, wild rose petals and ripe apples.
Nigel Slater’s ode to quince in his column in The Guardian describes it as “a quiet fragrant whisper” that fills a room and muses about baking the fruit in a low oven “with a glass of Marsala and a thick trickle of maple syrup or honey” for a couple of hours until they emerge “a translucent glowing amber.”
But mostly it was the French cooks — or Gallic-inspired cooks and chefs — who leaned into the glories of quince, whether baked into quince and almond Jalousie puff pastries or served as sweet pates de fruits.
In The Food and Flavors of Haute Provence, Georgeanne Brennan writes of the glories of quince, noting it’s made into “highly valued” gifts of jams, jellies and paste, that’s made into a kind of candy that’s rolled in granulated sugar and served as one of the traditional thirteen desserts on Christmas Eve. She also includes savoury recipes for quince and apple fritters fried in butter and Baked Quinces stuffed with sausage, currants and walnuts.
“The small epiceries offer freshly made pate de coing for sale,” she writes of the sweet quince paste of Provence. “It is displayed in shallow loaf pans and sold by weight … and the sugar rolling is done at home, just before serving.”
Alice Waters is another food writer and chef who sings the praises of quince in her cookbooks. The simple quince and apple tarte tatin, an upside-down puff pastry pie baked in a cast iron pan and “served warm with a glass of Sauternes” at Chez Panisse, is alluring. As are her recipes for quince paste, quince and apple fritters, and savoury Lamb Tagine with Quince.
Sicilian cotognata (French cotignac or Spanish membrillo) is “a beautiful dark red, jewel-like jelly that tastes like the most complex, aromatic, concentrated apple or pear you’ve ever had.”
“At Chez Panisse, we have no special molds and we dry the paste in a low oven, but we make it in the traditional way, stirring the pureed fruit over low heat until it is thick and concentrated. We cut sheets from the translucent paste into cubes or triangles and toss them in sugar for a special after dessert treat, a revelation to those have who never had it before. We also serve quince paste with cheese as they do in Italy or Spain.”
This is my quince-essential goal.
FINDING QUINCE
Quince is part of the botanical Rosaceae (rose) family, related to pears and apples. The fruit, and even the leaves, are covered in a soft grey down that’s easily rubbed or wiped off. It’s hardy and drought tolerant, a fruit for the moment.
In Greek mythology, quince is tied to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and sometimes called a "golden apple" — leading some to speculate it could be the original “forbidden fruit.” But beyond quince’s heady aromas, with its tart, tannic, woody nature, it’s hard to imagine that Eve was particularly tempted by a raw quince plucked from the tree.
Still, quince have a beautiful, bulbous pear shape that’s rather feminine and voluptuous — inspiring Vincent Van Gogh’s Still Life with Quinces, and other artists and writers, whether the doomed wedding feast in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, or The Owl and the Pussycat, who “dined on mince and slices of quince” then “danced by the light of the moon.”
Quince is native to the forests around the Caspian Sea but is well traveled today. Turkey is the largest quince producer, and it’s commonly grown in Mediterranean countries, and why you’ll find French, Italian and Spanish recipes for quince.
A knobby variety also grows well in the UK, and it’s fairly common to find a gnarly old tree bearing the fuzzy fruit in Victoria.
If you’re lucky, you’ll find a “Free” sign on a box of quince on a neighbour’s driveway during fall quince season or see some windfall fruit on the ground that you can pick up to take home. Don’t worry if they look gnarly – some are perfectly smooth and others have bumps and crevices, you’ll just cut them away. Just avoid any green or blemished fruits.
Otherwise, hit the social media trail and ask around. If you live here on the west coast, someone definitely has quince that they don’t want to deal with or some that they will sell to you for a song.
As I said, that’s where I scored my latest bag of quince at $1.50 a pound from a savvy seller who was flipping the fruit he picked in an employer’s garden. I took 10 bucks worth (about 8 pounds) as I wasn’t sure what to do with it — but might go back for more now that I have a handle on the best way to process it.
A lot of online writers say quince is too “faffy” and note it’s silly to fall in love with a fruit that’s so hard to find. But I say the quest for quince come fall is always worth the effort.
DESSERT, DINING OR PRESERVING
I definitely want to use my quince to make some kind of confection and paste, but I also wondered about eating it in desserts or even savoury dishes.
I used the pre-bake trick to soften the fruits before paring and coring them, then simmered those bits in water to create a pectin base for jam. At this point the flesh was a lovely light amber hue, and the fruit was firm, yet edible — like a tart, perfumed apple — and I simply placed the cored quarters into a bowl.
It seemed a shame to cook and mash it all, so another deep recipe dive ensued.
David Lebovitz, the cooking American expat in France, leans into the simplicity of poached quince, something you can make in advance and keep in the fridge for a week. Then, if you still want to make jam, you can recook the leftovers and proceed. The longer you store them in their poaching liquid, the redder they get, he writes in his blog.
You can add a little spice (a single star anise or cinnamon stick) to your sugar syrup but resist the urge to add too much spice as it will simply obliterate the delicate nuances and aromas of this alluring fruit. You might also use them as part of a compote with other fruits (think prunes or poached dried apricots), or eat the poached quince atop your breakfast yogurt. You can also spoon poached quince over vanilla ice cream, he says, or combine with apples and cranberries in a fruit crisp, which sounds delightful.
“If you don’t feel like poaching your quince, grate the raw flesh right into a bowl of apple or pear slices destined for a pie or crumble,” he writes.
Lebovitz makes a simple syrup of water, sugar and honey (7:1:.5) seasoned with a split vanilla bean and a halved lemon, then adds the peeled and cored quince to the simmering liquid, partially covers and poaches on low heat “for at least an hour,” noting it can take two hours or more until the quince is perfectly tender. He then stores the fruit in its syrup in the fridge for up to a week, or uses it to make a Quince Tarte Tatin. Another great tip is to reduce the quince poaching liquid to create a syrup or jelly (once all of the poached fruit has been eaten) which I think is a brilliant zero waste idea!
HOW I COOKED MY QUINCE THIS FALL
In the end, I made three different preserves with my haul of quince — about 10 pounds of whole fruit purchased from an online local seller for a tenner.
With the first half of my quince, I lightly baked, peeled and cored the fruit, reserving the cores and skins to simmer separately and release the pectin. The rest of the fruit was cooked down with sugar and water (and the reserved “pectin water”) until it was soft and jammy, then pureed with a hand blender, jarred and processed in a boiling water bath. The result is a lovely russet-hued Quince Marmalade to spread on toast, the essence of autumn.
For my second batch, I decided to make both quince jelly and quince paste (membrillo), which was a two-step process.
First, the peeled and cored fruit was boiled in water under tender (the peels and cored bundled in cheesecloth to add to the jelly pan).
The golden quince juice was drained off into another pan and boiled with sugar (and the reserved bundle) with a dash of fresh lemon juice, until it turned ruby red and reached the 220 F jelling point. Poured into jars, sealed and then processed for storage in a boiling water bath, the result was a sparkling red jelly.
The remaining cooked quince, reserved from making the jelly, was then pureed and cooked down (for a couple of hours) with sugar (1:.75) until it formed a thick, brick-red paste. This takes time and patience as you don’t want the mixture to burn, and it’s extremely hot, so stir carefully until it comes away from the bottom of the pan when you draw your spoon through it.
I poured the paste into square silicon molds (each piece about 1/2 inch thick) and let it cool until firm. You could also Then it was a matter of drying it for storage — and after 24+ hours in my home dehydrator, at the lowest setting, it was no longer tacky and safe to wrap in parchment and keep in a cool corner of the pantry in a sealed tin.
It’s dark and intense in sweet and sour quince aroma and flavour — perfect to serve alongside an aged cheese (we love a French Comte) or cut into tiny cubes to roll in sugar and serve as a sweet at the end of a meal.
PATIENCE PAYS OFF
Ironically, the first book I consulted about cooking quince was Fine Preserving by Catherine Plagemann (circa. 1962), published again in 1986 with the wry, sardonic and sometimes caustic musings of M.F.K. Fisher alongside each recipe.
Next to Plagemann’s detailed description of how make Quince Marmalade, Fisher had a lot to say about why she would leave this fruit on the doorstep.
“I never made this marmalade, but, honestly, I don’t know why anyone even bothers with quinces,” she writes, describing her own attempt at making her grandmother’s recipe for Quince Honey as a trial she would “never again!” repeat. Too much time and energy, and she “couldn’t even stand the taste of it”, she concludes.
I, for one, say Fisher is way off-base on this one.
There's no fruit that delivers the gorgeous colour, intense tart and sweet flavours and floral essence of quince. I’ve already invested a lot of time to acquire and dig into the mystery of quince, and I’m happy to say quinces are weird but so very wonderful, a real fall find!
SORT OF A RECIPE FOR QUINCE PRESERVES
You really don’t need specific recipes to cook quince preserves but here are some tips:
1. Place quince in a shallow baking pan and bake at 350F for about 20-25 minutes (just until then turn light brown) then remove from the oven and cool before peeling and removing the cores. This is far easier than peeling raw quince — once lightly baked then are soft enough to core, too, similar to a raw apple.
2. Save the peels and cores for making a pectin-rich liquid to add to your jams and jellies for a faster natural set. You can boil the peels and cores for an hour or two then strain and save the liquid (this saves you the step of having to put the pulp through a sieve or food mill to remove the seeds and peels before making your jam or marmalade).
3. Quince paste or marmalade is the natural byproduct of quince jelly. Boil the chopped fruit in water, just to cover, until it’s tender then drain and reserve the juice to make jelly (or syrup). Mash the remaining pulp for jam/marmalade or puree with an immersion blender. Then you can cook both separately (juice and pulp) with sugar to create a clear ruby red quince jelly and either a rich marmalade or a solid quince paste.
4. Combine juice or pulp with sugar (1:1 for jelly or jam, 2:1 for membrillo/paste) then cook until it’s thickened to your liking (or hits the gel point for jelly/jam). If you stop before it’s jelly, it’s quince syrup — great for cocktails.
5. You can keep a small plate in the freezer to test your jam as it cooks down. When it hits the “gel point” (a drop on the cold plate wrinkles when you press it with your finger), pour into sterilized canning jars, with two-part lids, seal and boil in a boiling water bath canner for about 10 minutes. Remove, cool and make sure the lids pop (indicating a good seal) before labeling your preserves and storing them in a cool, dark cupboard. Any that don’t seal can be stored in the refrigerator.
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