Quince Quiche

At the moment we have a bit of a glut of quinces in our garden. I tried this quince quiche in two ways, one with slightly caramelised quince segments and one with a quince puré. On balance I slightly prefer the second version. (Incidentally, for the quince segment version simply don’t puré the softened quince pieces.)

What you need:

• Short crust pastry or puff pastry for the base (I lazily bought a 250g packet)
• 3 to 4 good-sized quinces, peeled, cored and cut into slices (for the slice version) or cubes.
• 50 g butter and
• 3 table spoons sugar
• two good table spoons of liquid honey
• a pinch of cinnamon
• 1 vanilla pod, sliced
• 100 ml madeira
• 200 ml cream
• 1 tablespoon of quince syrup or jelly (to taste)
• 75 g ground almonds

What you do:

• In a wide or frying pan, melt the butter and stir the sugar until it caramelises.
• Add the quince pieces and stir them until they are coated.
• Pour in the wine and the honey, stir in the spices and allow to simmer till the quince slices are soft.
• Cover the dough base with the ground almonds.
• (If making the slice version, at this point lift out the quinces with a slotted spoon and spread them over the base.)
• Add the cream and allow to reduce to a creamy consistency then purée the quinces. Add quince jelly or syrup, or sugar to taste.
• Pour the mixture into the quiche mold (or the reduced sauce over the quince slices) and bake at 200° until the dough is brown and the topping has begun to brown (ca 40 minutes).
• Allow to cool; it tastes great once it is cold.