Y'all know of my love affair with quinces: "the difficult fruit." Yes, they are. As I've written, you bite one of these once and you never will again. If you have any teeth left. But they're sort of like our cats: give them love, and time and care, and maybe they'll come around to you . Quinces do. Our cats, well....
The recipe that follows is, as are many of Annalena's recipes, the result of a roundabout series of events. A couple of weeks ago, at dinner at "I trulli," and full to the gills, not wanting dessert, Christina, the world's best restaurant manager, maybe, brought out a dessert not on the menu. It was a quince cake, with spice ice cream. There was no way I could not. So I did. And I was jealous , as I always am, of Patti (Ms Jackson if you're nasty)'s cooking.
There is no way I can replicate Patti's dishes, but I can try. I made this one, last week, in feeding my Wolfpack. It combines recipes from two of the Chez Panisse cookbooks, and boy, is it good. Now, I will tell you that, after having made this dessert, I saw Patti at the farmers market yesterday, and told her how I had made the quinces. She smiled and said "next time, put a shit load of spices in the poaching liquid. You'll be glad you did."
Yes ma'am. Patti was buying wild cardoons to bring back to the restaurant to "fool around with," and I can't wait. We're going to go and see her sometime soon, and I hope they're still there.
In the meanwhile, let's go through this recipe. It's going to take a while to make, but a few thoughts on this. First of all, it's worth it. Second of all, you can make the quinces as far in advance as you like. Since it's another one of those "sit and read a book while they cook" recipes, I think you should make them some lazy afternoon. I may make them later today. Here's how you poach them. Get about two pounds of quinces. This will be 4-6 of them. Get ripe, fragrant ones. Ripe for quinces means yellow. Fragrant means just that. They will smell tropical, almost like a mango or pineapple. Most sources tell you to quarter, and then peel the quinces. I find it easier to peel them whole. Whatever works for you, do it. But then quarter them, and cut out their cores. This takes a bit of elbow grease, but you need to do it. The center is nasty, and quinces have a lot of seeds. When you're done with this, slice the quinces about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick, and put them in a pot with six cups of water, 2 cups of sugar, a half a vanilla bean, half a lemon and, if you are so inclined "a shitload of spices." Bring this to a boil, then lower the heat. Crunch up some parchment paper, and cover the quinces with it, and then cover the pot. Cook slowly, until the guys are tender. This will take 45 minutes to an hour. Let them cool in the pot, and then strain them. DON'T THROW OUT THAT LIQUID. Put the quinces into glass jars. I needed two, quart jars, and cover them with the syrup. Strain out any extraneous seeds. You'll have a pale pink product here. Let them refrigerate if you're not using them right away.
Incidentally, you CAN use these right away. They are marvelous on a cheese plate, or served with apples, for example.
When you are ready to make the upside down cake: make two. Here's the recipe for two, but half it if you really must. Drain the liquid from one jar of your quinces. Put it in a large skillet, with two tabelspoons of butter. Bring this to a simmer, let the butter melt, and keep your eye on the liquid as it browns and reduces. You're making quince caramel, and it's good. When it goes down to about half the volume, or when it's thick and syrupy, pour half of it into each of two, 9 inch cake pans. Swirl it around to cover them. Then, put a little butter on the sides. Now, lay out the slices of quince to cover the bottom of the pan, right on the caramel. Be generous. The fruit is going to shrink.
Here's the batter, for two cakes. Combine two sticks of soft, unsalted butter with 2 cups of sugar and a tablespoon of vanilla extract. Cream all of this in an electric mixer, until the butter is almost white. Add four large egg yolks, one at a time. You may want to lower the speed of your mixer for this. I recommend it.
While the mixing is happening, put 3 cups of flour and a tablespoon and a teaspoon of baking powder in a bowl, with a half teaspoon of salt. Also, get a cup of milk, or buttermilk, or yogurt or some dairy element ready. At low speed, alternate the dry ingredients with the dairy, ending with the dairy. Doesn't really matter how many "turns" you take on this, as long as you do the alternating.
In a separate bowl, get the 4 egg whites from the eggs you got the yolks, and bring them to a firm peak with the appropriate attachment for your mixer. Fold those eggwhites into the cake batter, turning the bowl and mixing as you go.
Spoon the batter over the quinces, even it out, and bake for a good 45 minutes in a preheated, 350 oven.
Now, here's the fun part. Let those cakes cool for fifteen minutes, but not too much longer. There's so much sugar in the cake, that if it gets too cool, you won't be able to release the cake, and you'll have to heat the whole thing again and say a prayer.
Put your serving plate over the cake pan. Protect your hands, invert the thing and shake FIRMLY. The cake should pop out. If it doesn't, put the cake pan on a low flame for a minute or two to get the sugar to melt again. That should do it.
Sometimes fruit sticks in the pan. No problem there. Just reappoint it on the cake.
The baking process will intensify the pink of the quinces, and your guests will be hard pressed to tell you exactly what they are eating. But they will come back for seconds, maybe even thirds. That's why you do two of them.
Oh, and the leftover syrup? Well, if you're adventurous, you can cook it down to jelly. But if not, just pour some of it into wine, or champagne, or soda, as you see fit, and have an interesting, autumnal/winter sip.
Quinces. They're worth the time. Unlike some cats, and some men...
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