In my dreams I’m an amazing cook. I make elaborate delectable feasts that can only be described as magnificent.

In reality, I’m not a great cook; I don’t even like the actual act of cooking, I tend to romanticize the idea of cooking though.

Every once in a while, seduced by food blogs and overwhelmed by a deep urge to cook, I’ll make something… which eventually convinces me of why I don’t cook to begin with.

The quince fruit has intrigued me for a while now; it’s mysterious, in that it’s a fruit yet inedible when raw, it has a powerful sweet scent and looks like an unattractive lumpy fuzzy pear. There’s just something remarkable about it.

A work colleague brought in a sack of quinces a couple of weeks ago.

She begged us to take them off her hands, even if it’s just as air freshener, she said.

Feeling inspired I brought three home, determined to make something wonderful out of them.

I didn’t think I had enough to make jam or jelly so I was going to poach them initially but that didn’t seem exciting enough so I decided to make jam after all based loosely on this recipe.

I peeled and cut the fruit into smaller slices, and boiled them in water with some cinnamon sticks for about 30 minutes.

Afterwards, I drained them and mashed the cooked quince to the consistency of apple sauce.

I added the sugar, set it back on the stove and let cook for another 20 – 30 minutes.

I put in the lemon juice, stirred and let it sit for a while to cool.

This is one of my cooking endeavours that turned out surprisingly well, and it wasn’t too much work either.

The jam was delicious!

Unfortunately, three quinces doesn’t make enough to can, so it went pretty fast.