Quince Jam. Step-by-step Recipe With Photo

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

The gardening season ends, all the fruits are ripe long ago, collected and prepared for the winter … but no, not all! Late autumn has prepared another gift for gardeners: quince. In appearance, its fruits are easy to confuse with apples, which is not surprising: these crops are relatives. But, biting off a piece, you will immediately understand what kind of fruit fell into your hands! Quince pulp is hard, tart and astringent, therefore it is not eaten raw. But after boiling, the tart fruit acquires an amazing taste, while retaining its useful properties. There are different recipes for quince jam: nuts, lemons, oranges, ginger are added to it. I will tell you a basic recipe, having mastered which, you can come up with variations to your liking.

Quince contains a large amount of pectin. These substances, firstly, perfectly cleanse the body; secondly, pectin is the best natural gelling agent - as you will see later, quince jam turns out to be like delicious jelly, and the pieces of fruit in it look like marmalade. By the way, the very name of the dessert "marmalade" comes from the Galician word marmelo, which means "quince"!

The most time consuming step is to peel the fruit. Further, the jam is mainly infused. You only need to boil it periodically.

• Cooking time: active - 1 hour, passive - 3 days
• Servings: about 0.8-1 L

Ingredients for quince jam

• 1 kg of quince;
• 1 kg of sugar;
• 0.5 l of water;
• a pinch of citric acid.

Method of making quince jam

Prepare a pan for jam: stainless food steel or enameled. Aluminum cookware is not suitable, as an oxidation reaction occurs when the fruit comes into contact with the metal.

After carefully washing the fruit (especially if a variety with a velvety rind is caught), cut them into four parts. Cut out the "stony layer", consisting of hard cells, together with the middle and seeds. If the fruits are so hard that they are difficult to peel, dip the quince in boiling water for five minutes, then catch it and cool it in cold water.

If you want the jam to look like jelly, do not throw away the peeled peel: it should be boiled in water, in which the syrup will then be prepared. Pectin, contained in large quantities in the quince peel, will go into the broth and provide it with better gelling properties.

This is how candied fruits are prepared, which I made at the same time as jam. She put the peeled slices in cold water so that they would not oxidize in the air, and boiled the peel in 500 ml of water under a lid, over low heat, for 20 minutes. Then I fished out the peel with a slotted spoon, and dipped the whole peeled slices into the broth and boiled it on low heat for another 10 minutes.

This is done to give the fruit pieces firmness and the syrup to thicken. If you want to simplify the process of making jam, then boiling the peel and whole quarters can be omitted and immediately proceed to cooking small pieces.

Pour sugar into the water - not all, but half - and, stirring from time to time, bring it over medium heat until the grains dissolve and boil.

Cut the boiled quince into cubes or slices of the same thickness and dip in boiling sugar syrup. Bringing to a boil again, reduce heat and boil for 5 minutes. Then remove from heat and leave for 3-4 hours until it cools completely, ideally overnight.

The next day, add the rest of the sugar to the jam and heat it again over low heat, bringing to a boil. Stir occasionally and gently so as not to crush the fruit pieces. With a low boil, boil for 5 minutes and again set aside for a day.

Then we boil a second time - also 5 minutes after boiling, and again leave to infuse.

Each time the color of the jam becomes more intense, acquiring a beautiful copper-red hue! It turns out not only delicious, but also very beautiful.

We repeat the procedure a third time, adding a few grains of citric acid to fix the color and better preserve it. For jam, 3 boiling is enough. For candied fruits, it is worth repeating again for the 4th time.

Put hot quince jam on sterile glass jars with screw lids and wrap until cool.

Delicious and pleasant autumn for you!