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Quince Syrup
quently, the volume of the water will be increased, and the volume of the oil will be decreased, and just in proportion to the apparent increase of water is the oil adulterated. By this simple means may be ascertained whether any essential oil is adulterated with alcohol, and the test is founded upon the great affinity of alcohol for water. (See "Oil of Neroly.") An imitation of Cognac oil is made from the quince and pineapple, and also from cocoanut oil. The manufacturer has an extensive variety of flavors to select from to find a substitute for Cognac oil, and may use instead of that flavor either œnanthic ether, butyric ether, acetic ether, orris, oil of bitter almonds, or a combination of these and the other flavors described in the following pages.
Quince Syrup.
To make this syrup, which is used as a flavor in recipe No. 3, take two pints of quince juice and put it in a warm place until fermentation has commenced. Let it stand three days, then filter the juice through a flannel bag, or blotting paper, and add 4¼ lbs. of white sugar; this had better be powdered. Place the syrup on the fire, and as it heats skim it carefully, but do not let it boil; or you may mix in a glass vessel or earthenware jar, and place in a pan of water on the fire. * This is a very clean way, and prevents the sides crusting and burning. When the syrup is dissolved so that you can dip your forefinger in it and apply it to the ball of the thumb, and then separate the thumb and finger, the fine thread of syrup reaching from each without breaking, take it off; strain through a cloth; bottle when cold; cover with tissue paper dipped in brandy, and tie down with a bladder until wanted for use. * This is what the French call a bain-marie, or water-bath.
A flavouring syrup rather than a table syrup: the juice is deliberately allowed to begin fermenting, which develops the fruity esters the book wants, then is filtered and loaded with sugar. Two details govern the result — never letting it boil, and taking it off at the thread stage.
- The sugar quantity is unreliableTwo pints of juice cannot take 44 lb of sugar; the figure is almost certainly a misprint that has lost a fraction or a digit. Syrups of this kind commonly run in the region of 2 lb of sugar per pint of juice, which would point to something nearer 4 lb, though the intended figure cannot be recovered. Treat the printed number as unusable and work by the thread test instead.
- The thread testPinching the syrup between finger and thumb and drawing a thread that does not break is the book's own gauge of readiness. Note that it is applied here to judge when the sugar has dissolved, not a boiled-sugar stage: the recipe says the syrup must not boil. Testing hot syrup on bare skin is the one part of the method worth abandoning outright.
- Bain-marieThe starred note is correct and is the better route: a heatproof bowl or jar in a pan of simmering water. Direct heat crusts the sides of the pan and the crust caramelises, which dulls the quince.
- The three-day fermentThis is a wild ferment in an open vessel, entirely dependent on the yeasts on the fruit and the ambient temperature. In a warm modern kitchen three days can carry it well past pleasant into vinegary. Judge by smell and active bubbling rather than by the clock.
- FilteringA flannel jelly bag is still the right tool; "blotting paper" means an unsized filter paper, for which a coffee filter substitutes. Quince juice is heavy with pectin and will run slowly. Do not squeeze the bag or the syrup goes cloudy.
- Quince juiceQuinces are hard, dry and low-yielding. Reckon on grating or chopping the fruit, cooking it soft with a little water, and straining; several pounds of fruit go into two pints of juice.
- Bottling and keepingBrandy-dipped tissue and a tied bladder were the period seal. Use sterilised bottles with proper caps, and keep the syrup refrigerated. Heated but unboiled, and with the sugar level in doubt, it should not be treated as shelf-stable.
- Yield and useWith the sugar quantity in doubt, the finished volume cannot be worked out from the text. It is intended as a flavouring in small doses, not as a cordial to drink neat.
Manuals of this kind belonged to a nineteenth-century trade in compounded spirits, where a distiller or rectifier bought neutral spirit and built the character of brandy, whiskey or rum out of essences, ethers and fruit syrups. Quince earns its place because its aroma is unusually ester-heavy — the same compounds that give pear and apple their perfume — which is why the surrounding text offers it as one of the raw materials for imitating cognac oil. Allowing the juice to ferment for a few days before sweetening is the point of the exercise: fermentation generates further esters and alcohols that plain fresh juice does not carry. Quince itself was far more common in kitchens then than now, valued for its pectin and its scent rather than eaten raw, and quince syrups and cheeses appear across European domestic cookery long before the essence trade found a use for them.