Quince Paste

Quince paste — known in French as pate de coings, in Spanish as membrillo, and in Italian as cotognata — is a firm, sliceable confection of quince and sugar. The technique reaches back to antiquity, when cooking fruit with sugar (or honey, before sugar) was the principal means of preservation. Quince, with its high natural pectin content, is uniquely suited to this preparation: when cooked long with sugar, the quince puree sets to a firm, sliceable block without added gelling agents. The confection is documented across the Mediterranean — in Provence, Spain, Italy, and Portugal — and was a staple of the medieval and early-modern pantry.

A slice of quince paste is deep amber, firm enough to hold its shape but yielding to the tooth, with a sweet, floral, slightly tart flavor unlike any fresh fruit. Eaten with cheese — particularly a sharp sheep's cheese like Ossau-Iraty — the paste's sweetness cuts the cheese's richness; eaten alone, it is a sweet of considerable complexity and depth.

Quince paste rests on the high pectin content of the quince. Quinces are cooked whole until soft, then peeled, cored, and pureed; the puree is combined with an equal weight of sugar and cooked slowly, stirring constantly, for a long time — often an hour or more. During this extended cooking, three things happen: the quince's natural pectin, released from the cell walls during the initial cooking, forms a gel network with the sugar and the fruit's acid, which sets firmly on cooling; the sugar concentrates as water evaporates, raising the boiling point and giving the paste its dense, sliceable texture; and the quince's pigments undergo oxidation, turning the pale fruit into a deep, rosy amber. The paste is poured into a mold or tray and cooled to a firm block that can be sliced.