one of the small Jewish grocery shops on J street had one lone box of quince, stationed at the end of one cashier’s stand, a box of passion fruit on the other. She was not paying any attention to the box, scanning two carts worth of groceries, but looked like a guard to me. quince!— i was holding my breath.
quince—the only member of genus Cydonia in the family Rosaceae, cousin to apples and pears and roses—make an appearance for a fleeting window of time in the fall, and now is a little early.
i approached the quince slowly and silently, cradling half a dozen in my arms with needless furtiveness. Bagged them myself when the cashier handled them roughly, because, despite being preternaturally hard, they bruise easily.
quince are ugly pretty (as Tyra would say) and smell divine, rose like and astringently fruity. Among people who discuss such things, quince is rumored to be the golden apple Paris rolled to Helen of Troy and the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden (for which pomegranates and, of course, apples also take credit).
peel, quarter and core the quince. Which is a nice little sentence for a task that will take a seriously sharp knife and careful, strong slicing through. They can replace apples in most recipes, although they take at least twice as long to cook. I baked half the stash and poached the rest, with the fruit and sauce from both efforts keeping nicely for topping cakes, along with butter cookies & whipped cream for sharing with co-workers, and muffins.
for the muffins, i used the poached quince. Three pieces of fruit chopped and simmered in a small saucepan of sleepy time tea and a bit of muscavado sugar for about two hours, until the quince is rosy colored and the liquid is syrupy.
heat your oven to 400˚.
these muffins began with an Apple Oat Muffin recipe from American Wholefoods, and morphed through the stores of the radical muffin kitchen. Pour 3 tablespoons of melted butter (replacing oil) over 3 tablespoons of muscavado sugar (replacing molasses). In a measuring cup, whisk together 1 cup of greek yogurt (replacing milk) with 2 egg yolks (replacing one egg), and one cup of chopped, mashed poached quince and juice, cooled. Stir this into the butter-sugar. Sift in a heaping cup of all purpose flour, with about ¼ of that oat flour, (replacing whole wheat flour). Stir in ¾ oats, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ¼ teaspoon baking soda and a bit of salt.
butter the top of a muffin pan to keep overflow from sticking, line with paper cups and spoon in the batter. Sprinkle tops with white sugar. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, until browned on top.
Glitter Sweets 