CookEat Recipe
Cotognata Quince Paste Tablets
Smooth quince and sugar paste, spread thinly and dried into small firm tablets, with an optional fine sugar coating.
Method
Steps
Step 1
Gather the ingredients: 3 kg whole ripe quinces, weighed before peeling and coring; 2 kg fine caster sugar; Water, enough to cover the whole fruit while boiling.
Step 2
Wash the whole quinces and remove any surface fuzz. Put in a large pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Simmer until the skins begin to crack and the fruit is tender, checking from about 30 minutes and allowing longer for large fruit. Lift out and let cool just enough to handle safely. Peel, scrape all usable flesh away from the cores and discard skins, seeds and cores. Pass the flesh through a sieve or food mill.
Step 3
Put the sieved pulp and the measured sugar in a wide heavy pan. Heat, stirring constantly, until bubbling. Continue stirring, checking after about 7–8 minutes, until the paste is thick enough to fall from a lifted spoon in broad ragged sheets rather than a stream. Continue a little longer if needed; fruit moisture varies. Protect against hot splashes.
Step 4
Spread the hot paste evenly about 3 mm thick on food-safe fruit-leather sheets or silicone mats rated for the drying temperature. Use several trays without stacking wet sheets. This is a large batch: work in smaller batches if the dryer lacks space. A quarter quantity uses 750 g whole quinces and 500 g sugar with the same method. Cool any paste awaiting a later drying batch promptly in shallow containers and refrigerate at 4°C or colder.
Step 5
Dry in a dehydrator or ventilated oven that can hold 60°C, following the appliance instructions for airflow. Start checking after about 6 hours; allow longer as necessary, potentially up to 18 hours in an oven. Once the top is firm enough to handle, cut into small rectangular tablets, loosen gently and turn them over to dry the underside. Finish when the centres are firm and no wet paste remains underneath. The times are guides for a thin layer, not proof of shelf stability.
Step 6
Cool fully, separate the tablets with baking paper and store covered in the refrigerator at 4°C or colder. Use within 2–3 days or freeze extra portions. The yield is approximately 120 small servings, depending on how the thin sheets are cut. Do not treat this adaptation as a tested canning or room-temperature preservation process.
Step 7
For shaped pieces, fill food-safe open-ended cutters with a thin 3 mm layer of the warm paste on a drying sheet. Smooth the surface, loosen the edges and lift the cutters away. Dry and turn the shapes as above; do not make thick blocks that remain wet inside.
Step 8
For an optional sugar crust, dissolve an additional 100 g caster sugar in 30 ml water and boil to the early thread stage, about 110°C at sea level. Use a candy thermometer and a cooled drop in cold water, never boiling syrup between fingers. At altitude, reduce the target by the difference between the local water boiling point and 100°C. Brush a thin coat onto one face and the edges of each dried tablet. Let set, then coat the other face. If the syrup crystallizes while working, add a few drops of water and bring back to the same stage. This small coating quantity may cover only part of the large batch; repeat it separately if needed. Refrigerate the coated pieces as above.
Step 9
For the soft preserve version, stop after cooking the thick pulp with sugar. Spoon into clean small heatproof containers, cool promptly in shallow portions and refrigerate at 4°C or colder. Use within 2–3 days or freeze. Simply putting it into jars does not make it a shelf-stable preserve.
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