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October 25, 2020
Quince: Easy Peeling and Cutting Tips
Quince have a wonderful flavour, but an almost impossibly hard texture. Read on for a quick kitchen tip that makes quince easy to peel and cut!
Quince are one of those fruits that chefs and foodies rave about, while the rest of us mortals try them once, and give up in despair or frustration. It doesn’t have to be this way. I am here to help, with a very easy tip to transform your quince from rock hard impossibles into easy-peeling fruit.
Because the foodies are right: fragrant, delicious, amazing quince are the Queen of fall fruits, worth every bit of effort.
Quince are in the rose family, and related to both apples and pears. They taste as though they are made of equal parts apple, guava, rose, and red wine, with an incomparable perfume and a beautiful colour that progresses from yellow to rose-pink to deep burgundy as they cook. Despite their difficult nature and fleeting window of availability, quince are dear to my heart and to my palate. Which is why I want to help you all to use them easily.
Quince are available only in the fall, usually only in October. On Vancouver Island, you can find them at farms, farm markets, and some grocery stores. Including, but not limited to: The Root Cellar, Dan’s Farm Market, Nanoose Edibles Farm, LifeCycles Fruit Tree Project, Michell’s Farm Market. Call ahead to make sure there are some available.
Now, on to our tip for making quince easy to peel and cut.
As some of you have no doubt already noticed, quince are ROCK HARD, almost impossible to peel and cut without blood, and maybe tears. They also can’t be eaten raw; aside from being tooth-chippingly hard, they are sour and tannic. So they have to be cooked and sweetened to reveal their wonderful aroma. And most recipes just blithely tell you to “peel the quince with a peeler and then cut into wedges away from the core.” HA. As if!
These recipes are clearly written by people who have either superhuman strength, or have never actually touched a quince.
But there is an EASY way around this…
Just partially bake the quince ahead of time. That’s it. Twenty minutes in the oven, let them cool enough to handle and bingo! The quince will now have the approximate texture of a raw apple: soft enough to peel and cut easily, while still firm enough to be cut into beautiful wedges and cubes without losing their shape.
The quince struggle is over with this one simple tip.
I can’t claim to have figured this out myself. A friend of mine, a domestic goddess and preserving champion, told me this easy quince tip over ten years ago and I am forever grateful.
Now that you know how to make your quince life easier, you can try my recipes for quince paste, quince pie, and savoury lamb tagine with quince. Or you can search the internet for quince jelly, quince marmalade, poached quince, and so many more wonderful ideas. Happy Quincing!
Easy Peeling and Cutting Quince
This quince cutting tip was shared with me by a friend many years ago and I am forever grateful. I often process all my quince this way and store the peeled and cut slices in zipper lock bags in the freezer for future use.
Ingredients
Quince (about 5 lbs at a time)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Wash the fuzz off the quince by rubbing them under running water. Place the whole quince upright on a baking sheet. Fill the sheet without crowding it too much. This works best if you only do one sheet at a time in your home oven, but you can do two sheets and rotate them half way through, if necessary.
- Place baking sheet with quince in the oven for about 20 minutes (a bit longer if the quince were large) until their skins have developed a light brown colour. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
- Once the quince are cool enough to handle, they will be easy to cut and peel. They will now be the approximate texture of a a raw apple: easy to peel and cut, while still firm enough to hold their shape. NOTE: the quince will still be quite hard around the core, so you may not get totally perfect wedges when you cut them. You can bake them a bit longer to help with this, but the cores have some grainy, hard quality that never quite goes away. Which is why we don’t eat quince cores.
- You can now use the quince in any recipe, OR put the peeled and cut quince wedges + pieces in a zipper lock bag and into the freezer for future use in pies, stews, jams, you name it.
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This message is for Maryan Hoffernan. I wonder if you could share your recipe for your quince & cardamom jelly? I have made quince jam & cajeta (Mexican candy) but I would love to try your jam. I will be trying this method of removing the skin from quince. My hubby & I work hard on peeling this fruit. The method of the oven sound easy & fast.
Thanks Rachel
Is the peeling edible after cooked?
Hi Karen, the peels are technically edible, although I have only ever used them to make pectin, never eaten them directly
I quartered the washed fruit and put them in my slow cooker for about 8 hours. I plan on putting them through my food mill and then making jam or fruit leather. The cranberry addition sounds good!
Quince fruit leather sounds amazing!
I was just given some quinces and will take your advice and bake the rest. I already have one pierced hand from trying to cut them in their raw state. Thank you for the tip!
You’re welcome, Janice!
Thank you so much for this tip! I am given quinces every year from a kind neighbour, and, of course, can never let her know that usually three quarters of them are thrown out because I can’t face preparing them. I have just cooked the ones she gave me this morning ( it’s autumn here in Australia) for about 20 minutes, and they are now a breeze to peel. Wonderful!
awesome!! I am so glad this tip was helpful to you!
That’s one sweet hack, Heidi! Who knew that heating the quince would help?!!
It was one of my cooking volunteers that gave me this hack years ago! So thankful!
As others have said, this is a game-changer! A question- does the cooking to peel & core also help them not brown? And have you found that either cooking & using this way, or cooking & freezing, works for most quince preserve recipes? I have some that need chunks in the preserves, and others that are more purees, and I’m wondering how this process affects the texture for that. Thank you!
Hi there, yes, once you partially cook them like this, the quince will not go brown after cutting. I have par-baked, then peeled and cut a lot of quince like this and packed them in freezer bags to freeze for later applications. They last about a year, depending on your freezer.
This partial pre-baking does not affect the cooking texture much. They are still quite firm and will stay in chunks or slices nicely. The chunks and slices will cook a *little* but more quickly than straight raw quince, but they still hold their shape for a while.
I hope this helps!
I too would apple the recipe
For the Quince Cardamom jam with lime slices! Yum. Thank you kindly.
Paula
I live in Korea and the school where I work has a quince tree. I’d never seen them before, but once I smelled one, I was in love. Friends told me, “Make membrillo!”
This was about five years ago. Membrillo was made. It was good. Fingers were sliced. Arms were bruised. Curse words to make a sailor blush were uttered. Kitchen was destroyed. Resolve was crushed. Every fall since, I have stared longingly at those fruits in the fall, smelled them, and said, “There has to be a way.”
After a few months away, I came back to Korea, just in time for quince season. My school was just letting theirs sit, and they were happy to give them to me. They are simmering for membrillo now.
No bloodshed. No bruised arms. No warped knives. No crushed resolve. No battered kitchen. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
You are welcome!! happy to help another quince warrior!
there have been some years that I felt like the black knight on the holy Grail after battling it out with quince. although treacherous, it was always worth it to me. however, I am getting too old and really ought to avoid physical trauma. I figured heat would do the trick, but as I have no oven at this time, I have to experiment with steam and micro. my intuition already tells me that baking results are far superior.
Heidi – whether or not you believe in heaven, I believe your place there has been secured because of this sorely needed and kind deed. ت I will come back here to report my experiment results.
thank you so very much
Thank you SO much for this lovely comment! I wish you well on your quince adventures 🙂
Thanks for the softening tip. I sharpened my knife until it was dangerous and still had to wack the fruit to get the stuck knife through! I had to cut it in 1/8 to core it.
I just did this method, but it’s still too hard for me, I’m going to stay with steam in the instant pot for 5 minutes, I found it very easy for me, Thank you! so much!