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QUINCE CAKES (another way)
Peel half a dozen quinces, remove the cores, and boil the fruit in a pint of the syrup of quinces, and the same quantity of syrup of raspberries, until it becomes reduced to pulp; then strain through a coarse sieve. To this pulp add three table-spoonfuls of loaf sugar, and boil it down till it is ready to candy. Make the pulp into cakes, and dry these on tin plates in a cool oven.
This is a quince paste — a stiff fruit candy of the membrillo family — dried in cakes rather than set in a mould. The whole thing hinges on driving off enough water before it goes into the oven.
- The syrups"Syrup of quinces" and "syrup of raspberries" were kept as stock preparations: fruit juice boiled with sugar, in proportions that varied from receipt to receipt but generally at least its own weight. With a pint of each, the mixture is already sweet before the loaf sugar goes in, which may be why only three spoonfuls are called for.
- Substituting for the syrupsIf you have no house syrups, a pint each of quince and raspberry juice cooked with about a pound of sugar per pint gives the same effect. Bottled fruit syrups made for drinks are thinner and much sweeter and will throw the balance off.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar broken from a hard cone; granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent, measure for measure.
- "Ready to candy"The stage at which the pulp will set firm and the sugar is on the point of graining; in modern terms somewhere around 110C or a little above, though the recipe gives no temperature. The practical test is that the pulp holds a channel when you drag a spoon across the pan bottom and pulls away from the sides. Stir constantly at this stage and use a deep pan; reducing fruit pulp spits badly.
- Cooking the fruitSix quinces may need anywhere from three quarters of an hour to considerably longer before they break down. They are hard and astringent raw and do not soften on the timetable of an apple; keep the lid on and add a little water if the syrup threatens to catch.
- The coarse sieveQuince flesh is gritty and full of stone cells, so straining is not optional. Press the hot pulp through a sieve or use a food mill — a blender leaves the grit in suspension.
- A cool ovenAround 200-250F (95-120C), with the door propped slightly to let moisture escape. A dehydrator at 135F does the job more reliably. Expect several hours to overnight, turning the cakes once they firm enough to handle.
- Tin plates and stickingLine the trays with baking parchment. Bare metal and cooling fruit paste bond in a way that no amount of scraping forgives.
- Yield and keepingSix quinces and two pints of syrup gives roughly 1.5-2 lb of paste, or two or three dozen small cakes. Dusted with sugar and layered between parchment in a tin, they keep for months; the sugar and low water content do the preserving.
Quince paste is one of the oldest sweetmeats in the European repertoire, made possible by the fruit's exceptional pectin content — quinces set firmly with nothing added but sugar and heat. The Portuguese marmelada, from marmelo, quince, is generally traced as the source of the English word marmalade, which for centuries meant a sliceable quince block rather than anything spreadable; the French kept a related sweet as cotignac and the Spanish still sell it as membrillo. By the later nineteenth century quinces were less common in English kitchens than they had been: they are rarely eaten raw, they demand long cooking, and cheap imported fruit and commercial jams offered easier sweets than reducing fruit to a candied paste.