Hello all! I hope you are well.

I’m back with another recipe: this time it’s a bit of an experiment (surprise, surprise!) because it’s my first attempt. Quince jelly. This is different from the Spanish equivalent ‘dulce de membrillo’, which is quite thick and granular, easy to cut and often served as an accompaniment to fresh cheese.

Photo of the Spanish ‘dulce de membrillo’ (quince jelly). As you can see, it’s quite thick, compact and granular in texture.

I prefer the finer ‘jelly’, so as quinces are in the plenty now (and at 1 euro per kilo) I thought I’d give it a bash.

So here’s what I did:

These furry fruits are locally produced and though they might look a bit manky, in reality they’re not. They are sweetly perfumed. You don’t need to weight the fruit because it is the juice that is extracted from them that needs to be measured.

I washed the fruit, removed any bugs and put them out to graze, then I chopped the quinces into 2 cm-sized pieces (more or less — I didn’t use a ruler!). No need to core or peel the fruit, as it is the juice that we’re interested in.

I placed the ‘cubes’ into a thick, tall pan, just covered them with well water (which has quite a lot of calcium in — good for the teeth but not for the gallstones), and brought it to the boil.

The pan’s quite deep. I boiled the fruit gently for about an hour until it was soft. I then mashed it all up — should’ve used a potato masher, but as I don’t have one (sacrilege! — guess what’s on my Santa’s list, or rather the Three Kings since I am in Spain), so I used a metal ladle instead.

When mashed, I turned out the contents into a cloth turned over a bowl, allowing the juice to strain through. It was a bit thick so I added some water, which apparently you are allowed to do. I should’ve used a jelly bag strainer, but since I don’t have one of these either, nor a good-enough piece of muslin, I used a clean, cotton pillowcase instead. (Guess what my second pressie from Santa will be…) Now although this mash might look a bit pukey and cacky, it was by now smelling really fragrant and exotic.

The next stage involved suspending the pillowcase and mash via a string over a big bowl for a few hours so that all the juice can drip through. After about four hours I did have to help things along and give the pillowcase a good couple of squeezes (which left my hands and apron damp, sticky and perfumed). Unfortunately, because I was also making a banana cake at the same time, I forgot to take a photo of the hanging pillowcase mash.

The next step was to return the liquid to the pan measuring out how many cups worth there was, then adding half that amount in sugar. (Next time I will add a little less sugar.) I also added a good squeeze of lemon juice for pectin. If you happen to have any leaves of lemon geranium, then you can add these to enhance the flavour and perfume. (Next time I make this jelly, I will ‘borrow’ some of these leaves from a lemon geranium I have seen growing in the flowerbeds in the communal gardens in Posadas village. I might also ‘borrow’ one of the lemons from the lemon trees that also grow there.)

Bring to the boil, let it boil rapidly until the setting point is reached (I used the wrinkle method and a saucer). Since I forgot to take photos of this step, it is similar to the apricot jam and chutney that I made in an earlier blogs.

When the setting point was reached, I poured the jelly into sterilised jars and sealed them with a waxed disc. (If you don’t have any waxed discs like I didn’t — surprise, surprise — then you can use the bag that holds your cereal. I haven’t actually tried this, but I did read it somewhere…)

Voilá! The final product! Delicious! As you can see, I didn’t wait long to try it out!

Aside: I did mention my apricot jam earlier, which reminds me that I should soon prune my apricot tree, the leaves of which are fast turning a luminescent yellow, which also reminds me of an interesting fact: that the duduk instrument, originating from Armenia, is made from apricot wood. I love the mournful, melancholic, spiritual sound of this instrument — it is well-worth listening to if you haven’t heard already. You could listen to Dzhiván Gasparián (Armenian), a master of this instrument. For me this music is bewitching…

Well, that’s all for now. Thank you for visiting — take care! xxx

PS. Comments or questions are always welcome!