Home › Jellies And Jams › Quince Jelly
Quince Jelly
Rub the quinces with a cloth until perfectly smooth, cut in small pieces, pack tight in a kettle, pour on cold water until level with the fruit, boil until very soft; make a three-cornered flannel bag, pour in fruit and hang up to drain, occasionally pressing on the top and sides to make the juice run more freely, taking care not to press hard enough to expel the pulp. There is not much need of pressing a bag made in this shape, as the weight of the fruit in the larger part causes the juice to flow freely at the point. To a pint of juice add a pint of sugar and boil fifteen minutes, or until it is jelly; pour into tumblers, or bowls, and finish according to general directions. If quinces are scarce, the parings and cores of quinces with good tart apples, boiled and strained as above, make excellent jelly, and the quinces are saved for preserves. - Mrs. M. J. W.
A straight-ahead pectin-rich jelly that needs almost nothing but quince, water, sugar and a way to test the set. The one thing the original leaves vague is doneness: fifteen minutes is a starting point, not an instruction.
- Test the set, don't trust the clockBoil to 220F (105C) at sea level, or until a spoonful sheets off the side rather than dripping. Depending on how watery your juice is this can take 10 minutes or 30; quince is high in both pectin and acid, so it sets readily once enough water has gone.
- Rubbing the quincesThe cloth is to remove the grey down that coats ripe quinces, not to polish them. Leave the skins and cores in — that is where most of the pectin sits, which is why the recipe adds nothing but water and sugar.
- Pint of juice to a pint of sugarThese are volume measures, roughly 2 cups juice to 2 cups (about 14 oz / 400 g) sugar. Work in batches of no more than 6-8 cups of juice at a time; a deep pot of jelly boils down slowly and unevenly.
- The flannel bagA doubled length of muslin or a jelly bag over a stand does the same job; the cone shape simply lets gravity do the pressing. Set it up the night before and drain 4-8 hours.
- Don't squeezeThe warning against pressing hard is the hinge of the whole recipe. Forcing pulp through gives cloudy, sometimes gritty jelly, and quince pulp is full of hard stone-cell grit.
- Tumblers and "general directions"A tumbler is an ordinary drinking glass, about 8 oz. The book's general jelly directions are not reproduced on this page; period sealing ranged from paper dipped in brandy or egg white tied over the top to, later, a poured layer of melted paraffin — neither is recommended now. Use half-pint canning jars processed in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes, or keep the jelly in the refrigerator and eat it within a month.
- YieldAbout 3 lb (1.4 kg) of quinces gives roughly 4 cups of juice, which makes four to five half-pint jars.
- The apple variationQuince parings and cores with tart apples still works, and is worth doing on its own terms. Use hard, sharp apples such as Granny Smith or a cider variety; sweet dessert apples are low in acid and the jelly may not set.
Quince was a standard fixture of the American preserving pantry well into the twentieth century, valued precisely because it is nearly inedible raw: hard, astringent, and so loaded with pectin and acid that it jellies almost without help, in an era before commercial pectin was sold in boxes. The fruit's long association with preserving is reflected in the word marmalade, which reaches us through the Portuguese marmelo, meaning quince. The Dixie Cook Book credits individual contributors by initials — here Mrs. M. J. W. — and her closing note about saving the whole fruits for preserves and jellying only the parings and cores is characteristic household economy: the trimmings carry the pectin, so nothing of value is thrown out.