Quince cheese – Hungarian recipe

Autumn fruits are one of my favorites! It feels like the sun of the summer is captured in them… One of the best fruits of my childhood is definitely the quince. I love to eat it raw if it is not too astringent or cooked. Through cooking the quince releases this amazing fragrance and its flavor invades all your senses.

Here’s one of my favorite recipes with it: quince cheese:

quince cheese Quince cheese
Servings: 15-20
Time: 2hr 30mins
Difficulty: easy

Ingredients

  • 1 kg of quince or 3 quinces
  • ~500 g of sugar
  • 1 lemon (optional)

Directions

  1. Wash the quinces thoroughly. Cut them into quarters and take out the center part. Don’t try to take the skin off, it’s easier after cooking.
  2. Put the pieces in a pan, add as much water to just cover the pieces and cook it on medium heat until they are soft.
  3. Strain the water off and peel the skin off. Make a puree with a mixer or blender. Add lemon juice instantly after making the pure to avoid oxidation. In case you want your quince to become red and oxidize, skip this step.
  4. Put the puree in a skillet (or the previous pan) and add the sugar. The actual amount of sugar added should be somewhere around 50% of the weight of the puree, but you can add more in case you like it very sweet. Cook until it thickens — it’s ready if you put a small drop of the sauce on a plate and it instantly stiffens.
  5. Let it cool down a bit, then pour it in shallow plates. You can line some plastic wrap on the plate so that you can turn it upside down easier when dried. The shallower the plate, the faster it dries out.
  1. After three days you can turn it upside down. Here comes the most difficult part: leave it alone for a week or until it dries properly. It should be in a dry and cool place (but not the fridge). Flip it from time to time to let the other side dry as well. [/recipe-directions][/recipe]

Hope it will make your autumn sunnier and tastier 🙂