My Great-Grandmothers Fruitbake (with Quinces)

My great-grandmother lived near the station of Switzerland’s train hub, Olten, was widowed relatively early, her husband having been a train driver, and clearly wasn’t rolling in money, but loved cooking and enjoyed her food; sometimes when her Grandmother got hungry in the evening, my mum tells me, she had to go to the restaurant next door to buy a litre of “montagner”, the cheapest red wine, to accompany a late night snack of cheese and bread.

The following recipe, which reflects the make-do spirit as well as the love of good food, has been in our family for as long as I can remember, and I have fond memories of coming home, finding this dish on the table, usually for supper, steaming once the crust was broken, but also with the promise of a lovely snack, cold, sometime in the following days, if indeed it survived that long.

The use of steamed fruit of any kind, rhubarb in early summer, plums, apricots and peach a bit later on, apples, pears and quince in autumn, make this a seasonally adaptable dish. In earlier times, steamed fruit would have been preserved in large glass jars and kept for later; we can of course use the fruit we freeze seasonally for later in the year.

What you need

• Steamed fruit (I used quince as we have masses of the this year) to cover the bottom of a ceramic baking dish
• 4 egg yolks
• 200 g sugar
• 250 g ground almonds (optionally substitute a portion of walnuts, I did because we have loads this year)
• 4 egg whites, whisked
• rind of 1 (organic) lemon
• sugar (brown) to sprinkle over the top

What you do

1. Cut the fruit into bite-sized slices or junks, add a bit of lemon juice to prevent browning and sugar to taste, add some water (not enough to cover the fruit) and simmer in a lidded pan until it is still firm, but not hard.
2. Pour a layer of fruit into a buttered baking dish, making sure it is not too watery. (the excess liquid, reduced with a bit of white wine and perhaps additional sugar, makes a good accompanying sauce.
3. Beat the egg yolks and the sugar until they are quite frothy, then add the ground almonds.
4. Grate the rind of one organic lemon over the mixture.
5. Fold in the whisked egg whites, making sure that the mixture remains as light and “fluffy” as possible.
6. Pour the mixture over the steamed fruit and sprinkle lightly with a bit of sugar (I didn't, as you can see, have brown sugar).
7. Bake in the oven at 200° for 35 minutes.

 

 

 

 

Remarks

I had a little Vin Santo, a sweetish Italian wine left, which I poured over the quinces together with the water and the sugar. Once I had taken the fruit out I added the peels, cores and the pips and boiled the syrup for a little longer as these act like a setting agent, making the liquid slightly jelly-like.

 To serve,  heat up the surplus liquid from the steamed fruit to pour over the helpings.

This dish freezes very well, so if you make twice what you need you can easily put another portion in the oven to warm up at a later stage.