[Sca-cooks] fruit experiment

[Sue Clemenger]

I've done quince pastes from Fettiplace--there are recipes in there for,
I think, "White and Black" marmalades or pastes....it was several years
ago, and I don't recall the exact title.
The premise was that quinces darken in color the longer you cook them.
So the "white" paste was cooked fairly quickly, with a minimum of water
(to cut down on the time needed to "thicken" it), and came out a fairly
light, rosy pink (maybe a shade more pink than standard caucasian flesh
tone).  The "black" is cooked and cooked and cooked, over a slow
charcoal fire.  The longer it cooks, the darker it gets.  Since I didn't
have access to the appropriate and period cooking methods for slow, even
cooking, I used my crockpot, set on low.  I could probably have done it
in the oven, as well, but the crockpot was more accessible, and I was
more likely to remember to stir it often, as it was quite visible,
sitting there on the counter.  Now, *this* stuff started out like a
pinkish apple sauce, similar to what you might get with crab apples, but
eventually became so deep a reddish/garnet/purple that it was, indeed,
almost black.
I did not make my "pastes" into a jam-type stuff, but did the
fruit-leather version, if y'all know what I mean, because the various
recipes for similar things seemed to indicate something along the lines
of a thick fruit leather that would keep indefinitely, could be cut,
molded, stamped, etc.  The "white" paste, IIRC, got very hard and almost
crystalline, and I'd guess I didn't do something quite right because it
definitely didn't stay flexible (probably something to do with cooking
the sugar for the wrong time or temp, I dunno).  The "black" paste was
still faintly flexible and edible several years later.
--maire

johnna holloway wrote:
>
> I just did quince paste/candy where you add equal weights of cooked
> pulp and sugar and mix two together and mold. The clear liquid/jelly was
> poured off
> and set up on its own. I stewed them in just a bit of water,  poured off
> the liquid for the jelly and sugared the pulp. Mine came out rosy dark
> pink.
>
> I read through the section on MWBof Cookery before I started and ended
> up using some recipes of Nostredamus's.
>
> Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway
>
> Nancy Kiel wrote:
> >
> > Martha Washington's Book of Cookery has quite a few quince receipts, and
> > depending on how you cook it(covered or uncovered) you can make your jelly
> > come out different colours.
> > Nancy Kiel
> > nancy_kiel at hotmail.com
> > A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.   Emerson
> ----------
>  >From: "Karen O" <kareno at lewistown.net>
> >  While I was on vacation, I found quinces! snipped I also made some jam/paste with apple
> > >juice, and will probably seal it in jelly jars with a water bath  -- not
> > >knowing how else to preserve the stuff.
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