[Sca-cooks] contignac

[Sue Clemenger]

I think I did the *initial* cooking (prepared fruit, some water, the sugar)
on the stove top.  When the fruit had gotten soft enough, I put it through a
food mill (I have a china cap one), and put the (sweetened) puree into the
crockpot, and turned it on low.  No lid, 'cuz I was trying to get it to
thicken quite a bit.  Stirred it once an hour or so.  IIRC, I did it over
the course of a weekend (I get the willies thinking of leaving something
like that plugged in when I'm not around.)  I think I started it so that it
first went into the crockpot in the evening, but I'm not positive, sorry.
It's been a while.
It started out looking like a sort-of pink-tinged apple sauce, thickened to
an apple butter, and continued to thicken.  The longer it cooked, the darker
red/purple it got, until the final product (which was pretty stiff) was such
a dark purple it was almost black.
The "light/white" half of the paste is cooked much more quickly, to minimize
the exposure of the fruit to the heat (to minimize the color change, I
assume).  When finished, it had a completely different texture--almost like
dried, sweetened papaya spears, rather than a flexible, but dry fruit paste.
I'm not sure (since I didn't have a chance to repeat it) if that was an
error on my part with the sugar, or just the nature of the two different
cooking methods.
Lots of fun to play with, though.  ;o)
--Maire
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sandra Kisner" <sjk3 at cornell.edu>
To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 10:24 AM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] contignac


>
> >Crock pots *totally rock* for this sort of thing.  I made the "black"
part
> >of a black and white quince paste (from Fettiplace) quite successfully,
> >several years ago.  Haven't had the chance to repeat it since then,
though,
> >because I haven't had another chance at quinces....
> >--Maire
>
> Do you just put the paste and sugar in and cook with the lid off?  How
> long?  (I'm wondering if I could leave it safely overnight, as I'm seldom
> home for really long periods of time most days).
>
> Sandra