For most of my life I have focused my cooking energies on doing (in my view) tasty, reasonably healthy main courses or starters without burning a hole in my pocket. I have limited dessert experience and next to no cake baking experience. Jams, jellies and pickles are also a hole in my experience. So making Membrillo from quince has been a challenge for me...and if you are experienced in making jams or jellys forgive my inexperience!

Well, Hugh's 'quince cheese' recipe spoke of bringing the dissolved sugar to the boil for 5 minutes then simmering the quinces for an hour after that. I did that last night. Since it was already late, I then poured the quince paste into a roasting tray and tried to set it in the oven at 50 Celsius. At 01:30 on Saturday I realised I had fallen asleep and that the quince paste was still in the oven - the good news was that it was not burnt, the bad news was that it had not set. I duly went to bed. To be honest the less than set mixture would have made a great sidedish to meat and vegetables: I had something in that direction a year ago near Grenoble.

After most of today spent on taking my youngest boy to his gymnastics competition, I took a look at the original recipe this afternoon. Despite the claim that boiling the quince for about an hour would be sufficient it was also clear that they said that there should be a thick paste in the pot. That was not really the case last night despite the hour cooking...

So today I returned the membrillo to the cast iron pot and let it simmer for a further hour. BTW, when food writes talk of 'simmering' is it the same? I simmered last night with the quince mix barely bubbling. Maybe Hugh had a more vigorous simmer than me!

After an hour the mix was a much deeper red. I put it into a tray in the oven for a further hour at 50 Celsius and it truly set.

 

I have tried it out with cheese and indeed it goes well. Particularly with the more salty ones. While the membrillo has set I am not sure I can talk of slicing it; it did not set that much. However I can put it into jars for Chirstmas.

 

The first taste test with cheese and wine went well. The sweetness of the quince complemented the saltiness of some cheeses.

Maybe this whole exercise was not a thundering success but at least disaster was averted!