Most people grow flowering quince for its gorgeous, early spring blooms, and I can’t really blame them. The flowers are show-stoppers, and may be orange, magenta, pale pink, or red. Unfortunately (at least for us foragers), many modern hybrids are bred to be sterile, and don’t produce fruit. Apparently some people find the fruit to be a nuisance. Let’s not call those people wrong…they’re just misinformed. Clearly they have never tasted flowering quince fruit.
Double-flowered shrubs have been bred for bloom, not fruit. So look for single-flowered shrubs, and check the plant tag. If a plant is fertile, it may indicate this on the tag. That’s how I chose my ‘Toyo-Nishiki’ cultivar.
Many people assume the fruit is inedible, perhaps because they tried biting into one as a child. Raw, the fruit is better suited to being flung in a slingshot than served for dessert. Ah, but cooked is an entirely different story. The application of heat brings color to the fruit, softens its sour flavor (it’s still tart!), and transforms the texture from rock hard to satisfyingly succulent.
Leave the fruit on the shrub until it begins to fall of its own accord, which can be as late as October or November, depending on where you forage.
Flowering quince fruit is much smaller than true quince fruit, but the flavor and texture is very similar, and flowering quince can be used in many true quince recipes.
“Like what?” you ask. Like:
- Flowering quince is a great fruit for making jelly, because it contains LOTS of natural pectin. For beginning jelly-makers who have yet to witness a crystal-clear demonstration of the jelling point, use flowering quince for your first no-pectin-added jelly. It reaches the jelling point quickly and obviously, and produces a vibrant red jelly with a bright tart taste.
- Cook the juice longer, and you can make membrillo (aka quince paste), then slice it and serve with manchego cheese.
- You can poach halved quinces in wine or juice, and serve them for dessert with vanilla ice cream or Greek yogurt. Or, for something completely different, stuff your quince halves with a combination of meat and spices.
- Grate quince flesh and preserve it in syrup, then stir it into your morning oatmeal.
- Toss quince fruit into your slow cooker to make quince sauce. (Be sure to taste as you go; you’ll need more sugar than you would for applesauce.) Once you’ve got the quince sauce, use it instead of crabapple sauce in this whisky cake.
- And since we’re on the subject of spirits…soak quince fruit in vodka, then add sugar to make a delicious yellow liqueur that’s high in vitamin C. After all that cooking, you deserve a cocktail!
Can you make jelly from the blooms only?
Hi Kay, You can make jelly from almost any liquid and you could certainly make jelly from flowering quince flowers. Unfortunately, they have almost no flavor. So while you might get a nice color (depending on the color of your flowers), the jelly would taste sweet only, with no other flavor.
Very helpful.
I make lots of fruit gins already but have not tried with Japanese quince before.
It seems that most recipes recommend removing the core and pips – is that necessary?
Yes, I remove the cores and seeds because they add bitterness to the drink (and I don’t need the pectin the way I would if I were making jelly), but I leave the skins on.
Hello, I’ve got some Japanese quince from next door.
They are still green, can I cook them as green or have to wait till become yellow?
If I make liquor, can I make it with out the suger?
Thanks!
You should wait until the fruit is ripe (yellow) so it can fully develop its flavor. I imagine green fruit would be less sweet and flavorful. As for making the liquor without sugar, you can certainly do it, but I can’t vouch for how it will taste! It will be an entirely different beverage. If you try it, please let me know how it turns out.
Thank you very much!!!
My wife found a bunch of these on a college campus in PA.. VERY interesting… Sooo tart. I was thinking, poaching in white wine and a touch of butter,, Then slicing and making a tart. Puff pastry, chevre, thinly sliced “flowering quince”, topped with honey…,.,,,,.,.,,,,,, then back in the oven.?.?.? The lemony flavour, with the honey..,,.,.,.,,,, and the chevre (with the puff pastry back?????),,,,, Does this sound good? We love you Backyardforager…… Mark. 🙂
You’re teasing me, right? Does it sound good? It sounds fantastic! Wish I could join you for dessert!
I’m just over two weeks in on the four weeks of lettling my cored flowering quince fruits sit in the syrup made from filling the spaces between the fruit pieces with sugar. So far it tastes wonderful, but it is fermenting into alcohol and losing the sweetness of the syrup. I’m watching it closely to make sure i don’t see signs of yeast settling on the bottom and hoping it goes well through the full four weeks before drawing it off and adding vodka. But since I haven’t done this before I’m a bit nervous and wanted to ask….is this normally how your recipe from the Foraged Cocktail progresses, or am I on the path to a different recipe? I’m guessing that it’s going well but am just seeking a sanity check!
I’ve never had that happen, but my gut tells me you’ll be fine. Fermentation doesn’t usually happen once a certain sugar level is reached (as with a simply syrup), so perhaps that has something to do with it. If you’re concerned that the fruit is losing its sweetness, I suppose you could add some more sugar, but if I were doing it I’d let this play out and see what the flavors are. As you said, perhaps you are on the path do a different recipe. Of course you have to do what feels safe for you.
it is great for flavouring Gin too! And the Gin and Tonic made with it is out of this world! Very delicate, but delicious!
sounds delicious!
My neighbor has one that is wildly overgrown. I lighty prune the one side that hangs over my small shade garden and wrestles with my lilac and rhododendron for space. I’ve been rewarded with a small number of fruit. Misshapen and varied in size, but Oh So Fragrant! I stumbled upon a recipe called Membrillo which is a special treat in many Spanish-influenced cultures (Dulce de membrillo is one name). A kitchen scale comes in handy when determining how much fruit you have for the recipe and making any adjustments; peeling the fruit is the only real challenge. If you have a friend from Chili who maybe misses home sometimes, make this for them. Or bring it, along with some cheese & crackers, to a holiday gathering.
Thanks for the helpful information! I have one of these bushes in my yard. This year the bush produced much larger fruits than normal, and 4 times as many as I have ever seen on it before. So I need to finally try one of these recipes.
I have been waiting for the fruit to ripen, I noticed today that many of the fruits have fallen to the ground, but most of those fallen fruit still have a lot of green color on them. Do you think they might ripen more if I let them sit in the window? The one that is golden yellow smells wonderful.
I think I’d like to try making jam/jelly, and am wondering if cutting out the cores would remove too much of the pectin? The cores on some of the these first fallen fruits look like they are going bad, as if the fruit opened on the bottom and has left it exposed. So I was going to cut them out and freeze the fruit until the late fruit is ripe.
Congratulations on your harvest! The quinces that have fallen may still ripen, if they’re showing some yellow. Try putting them in a paper bag with a ripe apple or banana to hasten the ripening process. You should definitely cut out any rotten bits before making jam/jelly, and freezing the fruit until you have enough to work with won’t hurt that at all. It’s true that the seeds contain a lot of pectin, but so do the skins, so if you don’t peel the fruit you should have plenty of pectin to get a good gel.