It can be very hard. I used 4 pounds quinces, trimmed out to about 3.5
pounds. Chopped, stewed for juice with a scraped vanilla bean from the
War Between the States era or thereabouts (I misremember when I bought
it. Gotta label them cans and jars when I get them!). Then drip for 24
hours. Nice 7 cups of juice, added 3/4 c. sugar per cup of juice. Hm.
Never cooked jelly without pectin before. Here goes....cooked on low
boil for an hour or so, never jelled, raised up heat to high boil,
checked email & cruise web, never got up to required temp on either
thermometer. Cold sticky spoons and saucers everwhere. Finally took a
chance and poured into 5 8 oz. jars. Lovely maply color. Hard as rock
in the cooled jamming pan...uh oh. Hard as rock in jars. Scoop out,
add 1 or 2 cups water, melt down sort of, pour into lasagna pan. Will
cut into pieces & dust with fine sugar. Nice Candy. Went out & bought
digital thermometer.
Couldn't throw away all that lovely 6 cups pulp, made lovely quince
butter with 2 cups sugar, 1/2 teaspoon each ground coriander, ginger,
1/4 teaspoon cloves and cinnamon (don't want to overpower delicate
quince & vanilla flavors) and an extra 2 cups water for simmering. This
stuff was real thick already. Simmer 15 minutes, pour into 5 sterilized
pint jars, process 5 min. + altitude. Nice, better than applesauce, not
so powerful as apple butter. Could make with less sugar or Splenda for
sure.
See also neato quince website www.cresanu.edu.au/-mccomas/quince.html
Another lesson learned - the juice *should* be clear, but if it isn't,
don't dispair - when I added sugar & cooked, it cleared right up.
Back to cleaning up - it looks like a s**t blizzard hit the kitchen.
Edrena