MY QUINCE JELLY PAGE
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Chat Group that has been
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Quince FAQs
Q. How do you tell if quinces are ripe?
A: An unripe quince is green and sometimes covered in fine down. A really ripe quince is uniform lemon-yellow. If you pick them when that are still a bit green, the pectin level is higher, so they make better jelly.
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Many of our neighbours have old quince trees in their gardens, but few of them make use of the fruit. This leaves plenty for me! In Australia, quince season starts in about late February and runs through until late May. I suspect that the fruit's pectin content is higher at the start of the season (although I can't prove it), so I tend to pick the fruit earlier, rather than later. To make quince jelly - the finest of all jellies - and the 'proper' use for the quince, it does not really matter if the fruit are a bit under-ripe. Under-ripe quinces are on the greenish side of yellow and are covered in fine silvery down.
10 kg (20 lbs) quinces, chopped
white sugar - about 4 kgs
pectin
juice of two lemons
Makes about 20 medium jars.
For a typical batch of jelly, I would take say 10 kilograms of fruit and chop each quince into eight or ten pieces. Don't skin it or core it. All the chopped pieces go into a big cauldron and I just cover the fruit with water. Bring the pot to the boil - this may take some time. Once the pot reaches a rolling boil, I let it boil for a further 45 minutes or so. This gets at the flavour out of the fruit and into the liquor. Now tip the mixture through a colender into a second cauldron. Reserve the liquor, as they say in recipe books. I toss the boiled fruit out, but some clever souls preserve that too (see Quince Recipe section).
So now we have a big pot full of quince liquor. I rinse the colender, line it with a tea-towel and carefully strain the liquor so that there are no 'floaties' in it. This is important. If you want a good clear jelly, then all the floating remains of the fruit have to be strained out now. Next, measure the volume of liquor with a measuring jug and pour it back into a large pot. Add the juice of two lemons to aid the setting process and two packets of pectin ('Jamsetta' in Australia). For every litre of liquor, add 1kg of white sugar (or one pound of sugar per pint of liquor is about the same). Then bring it to the boil, stirring all the time. Boil the liquor and sugar mixture until a drop on a cold plate shows a 'gel' - a sticky surface will start to form on the drop. Pour the mixture into clean jars.
Yours
McComas
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If you have a
shrub in your garden that looks like this,
you have a flowering quince or 'japonica' -
you can use its fruit for jelly when they turn yellow.
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