A good friend from Hawaii recently visited for a weekend. We crammed a lot of good things in, and on the final day did a tour of several local distilleries. Our last stop was Stone Barn Brandyworks. The owners happened to have a huge bin of fresh Comice pears and a smaller bin of fresh quince they were turning into fruit brandies. The owner kindly sliced up a pear for us to eat while we were sampling their booze. Unfortunately most quince varieties are not for raw eating so no quince tasting for us. Even more unfortunately, my friend had never had the opportunity to try quince. I decided I should make some quince butter to send to her. Researching recipes I found an interesting one from Cooking Light. In the recipe the quince is cooked in a dilute sugar syrup. Once it's softened the quince is removed and puréed, and the syrup is cooked down until all of the water has been removed and the sugar hits the soft ball stage. The puréed quince and sugar and mixed back together to form the final butter. I'd never made a fruit butter this way before, but my curiosity was definitely piqued. I decided to give it a go with a few modifications. I thought some citrus and vanilla would enhance the lovely floral flavor of the quince. I replaced part of the water with freshly squeezed orange juice, and added some finely minced zest and vanilla seeds to the finished butter. To enhance the flavor further I cooked the quince with the vanilla pod and a sachet containing some orange peel as well as the quince peelings. The technique worked beautifully, and the resulting butter is fantastic. If you'd like to preserve some quince I urge you to give it a try. (Note: I've not tried the technique with apple butter, but I'm betting it would work, and it is on my fall to-do list.)

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