Oct 6, 2014 3 min read

I have rarely touched on the same subject in this column two weeks in a row. However, I have to share my experience in making the quinces I talked about last week into jelly this week. On Wednesday morning, I began the jelly-making process. It lasted four days.

The first step was washing all of the produce. The sink was filled to overflowing with the small, yellowish fruit. After they were clean, I sliced them and tossed them – skins, seeds and all – into a large pot and covered them with water. It took four of my largest pots to hold them all.

The pots of fruit and water were brought to a boil, then allowed to simmer until all of the fruit sufficiently softened. Then I was ready to drain the juice. I found that sterilized white pillowcases work well for this process, so I grabbed mine and got ready to hang the bags full of fruit and juice to drain.

Suddenly, I couldn’t recall where I had done this part last year. After much debate, my husband decided it would be relatively simple to hang twine from nails pounded into the exposed beams in my kitchen ceiling for the bags to dangle from. Four strings were added, and I prepped four bags of fruit.

While I was hanging bag three, I heard a creaking noise and looked toward the first bag. It seemed to be spinning, so I stopped it. Again it creaked and began to spin. Again, I stopped it. When I heard the creak a third time, I looked up just in time to see the twine begin to unfurl – like rope does in the movies, only without any dramatic pause – and the bag plopped down into the pot beneath it.

Before I had a chance to react, the second bag’s twine did the same thing, only it plopped down into a pot that was already half full of juice. The juice in that pot came over the top in a tidal wave of sticky, pink liquid that splashed all over the floor. I quickly let the third bag down. I mopped the floor before grabbing different rope for the juice bags. After several more hours, the juicing was finally done.

The next day, the pulp that remained after the juice was extracted was run through the Squeez-O to separate the skin and seeds from the juiceless fruit. I added sugar to the pulp and cooked it for several hours, until a spoon stood up in the middle of the pot and the fruit took on a dark amber color. The fruit paste – or membrillo – was canned in pints.

Then, for two days, I made jelly. Simply juice and sugar, the liquid cooked for nearly two hours a batch to ensure the sugar was fully dissolved, and then that the temperature was high enough to cause gelling. That also was canned in pint jars.

Four days later, I have nearly 100 jars of quince paste and jelly. I have a freshly mopped kitchen floor. I have no raw fruit looming over my head. I also have nowhere to store all my bounty.

Any guesses what will be in Christmas baskets this year?

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.