quinces.

Winter! Already! It’s hard to believe most of the leaves have fallen, leaving the branches bare and cold.

We welcome winter’s fresh produce with (woolly jumper clad) open arms… Broccoli, cauliflower, kale, persimmons, chestnuts, rhubarb, pears..

I’ve planted some greens in my garden, and look forward to planting some more soon. At the moment I have little broccoli, beetroot, snow peas, broad beans, spinach, lots of parsley, lettuce, nasturtiums. I had some nice little chard growing fiercely, but something ate it all! Probably a possum. It’s very disheartening when something is growing so strong but then gets eaten all in one night by an uninvited garden guest.

We have had beautiful Quinces and non-astringent (hard eating) Persimmons from Prue’s trees. Some of the Quinces had Codling moth, so it took a little extra cutting when preparing them, but we still got a lot of good fruit. Quinces are so delicious, and such a special fruit that’s only available fresh for a short amount of time. They are so fragrant; it’s nice to have a bowl of them in the house just for the smell! They remind me of my great-grandma Joan, I remember eating poached quinces with yoghurt at her house when I was little.

I didn't get a chance to make quince paste this year, so next year I will definitely give it a go.

I made a beautiful quince and almond teacake with quinces from our garden, and almond meal left over from making almond milk. It was mouthwateringly delicious.

The cake was inspired by a quince and almond tart someone from work made with quinces I had given her, which was so yummy.

I used a recipe I found on the Internet for an apple cake, which I made on mother’s day, so I just changed the recipe a little for what I had on hand, and used quinces instead of apples.

Here is my version of the recipe.

For the cake:

3 eggs

1 cup rapadura or coconut sugar

1 ½ or 2 cups almond meal

½ cup milk of your choice, I used oat milk

2 ½ tbsp butter or coconut oil, melted (tried and tested, they both work well)

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

Rind of 1 lemon

Enough poached or baked quinces to cover the bottom of your cake tin

Spring form cake tin, lined with baking paper

For the quinces:

I roughly followed Stephanie Alexander’s recipe for oven roasted pears or quinces. This is my version.

80g butter, chopped

4 - 6 medium quinces.

3-4 tbsp coconut sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

1 vanilla bean, split

Pre-heat oven to 150C.

Peel and cut quinces into halves or quarters, remove core.

Put quinces in a large pot with the lemon juice and cover with water. Bring to the boil. Simmer for a little while, maybe 20 minutes. While quinces are simmering, melt butter in a large baking dish, I used a cast iron dish.

Drain quinces and put them in the dish with the melted butter. Roll in butter to make sure they are well coated. Sprinkle with the sugar, and place vanilla bean in the dish. Bake in the oven for about 2-3 hours, until the quinces are rosy pink and caramel-y. I personally thought there was too much butter, that’s part of the reason I wanted to use them in a cake. Next time I don’t think I will put this much butter if I am just cooking them to eat by themselves.

For the cake:

Pre-heat oven to 175C.

Beat eggs with sugar until thick and creamy (they wont go pale and fluffy if you use rapadura or coconut sugar, more of a caramel colour.)

Melt coconut oil or butter and beat into egg-sugar mixture, along with vanilla, cinnamon, lemon rind and milk.

Then add almond meal and baking powder and mix to combine. The mixture is quite runny, but that’s ok.

Arrange cooked quinces in the bottom of the tin, and then pour cake mixture over quinces.

Bake in the oven for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until cake is cooked through.

When it has cooled slightly, turn it out of the tin and put upside down on a plate so quinces are on top.

Serve with double cream or yoghurt. It’s lovely straight out of the oven, and just as nice the next day. Enjoy!

I am absolutely in love with fresh almond milk. I don’t think I will ever buy it from a shop. I never have, and never will. It’s so easy to make. I was reading the labels on the brands they sell at shops, they all have other things added to them, and most are sweetened with sugar, agave or some other sort of syrup. One brand was only 2% almonds!!

A while ago I bought a nut milk bag sort of as an impulse buy, and thought I’d wasted my money, but then I used it and I’m glad I got it!

How I make my almond milk:

Soak about 1 or 2 cups of raw Bio-Dynamic almonds in water overnight, then the next day I drain and rinse them, then put them in the food processer with about 3-4 cups of water and blend on high for 2 minutes.

Put the nut milk bag over the rim of a medium size bowl, pour the almond milk through the bag and squeeze it – it really is like you’re milking the almonds! Squeeze it so as all the juice is out, and you’re left with almond meal.

You don’t have to use a nut milk bag, you could use muslin or another type of fine weave cloth.

It’s important to soak your almonds, it activates them and makes them easier to digest. Oilier nuts like cashews don’t need to be soaked for as long, 2 or so hours would be enough.

I tried making cashew milk a while ago, but didn’t really like it. I think ill stick with almond. `

One of my favourite ways to drink it is with ½ boiled water, ½ almond milk and a teaspoon of honey. Its so yummy!

 I'm ending this post with a nice picture of some spelt pancakes Freya and I made a little while ago, just       to keep you inspired about yummy food :)
We had yoghurt, coconut chocolate butter, strawberries and caramelised bananas on them. So yum!

Until next time peeps.

x Zannah