Since the weekend I’ve had a bowl of homegrown quinces sitting on my kitchen bench, ripening, looking beautiful and smiling at me. In light of the widespread awareness and interest in consuming less or no sugar, I’ve decided to try a cooking them with only a little honey ..

When poaching or stewing fruit many recipes include a lot of sugar. However, fruit is naturally sweet so you don’t actually need to add a lot of sugar. My quinces were ripe but not super ripe so I added honey when cooking, but only a little, and lots of spice.

What’s so good about quinces..

Quinces have such a beautiful floral sweet flavour. A bowl of warm poached quince (with perhaps yoghurt, custard or ice-cream) is such a warming alternative to other stewed fruit such as apple or pear. Apart from amazing flavour, sweetness and soul warming love quinces also provide you with a lot of fibre (wonderful for healthy digestion), vitamin C and small amounts of some minerals including iron, potassium, magnesium and also B vitamins.

When cooked on low heat and for a long time they tend to become of a lovely rose pink colour.. just like the colour of quince paste. This recipe is an easy and quick one so no pink creation here yet it’s still totally beautiful.

Makes: approx.. 4 cups
Preparation: 5-10mins
Cooking: 20- 35mins (depending on ripeness of fruit)

5-6 large qunices, peeled and sliced
2 Tbsp. honey
1 Cinnamon stick
1 Star anise (not essential, but delicious when added)
a few cloves

1. In a large saucepan add peeled and chopped quince, enough water just to cover the fruit and bring to the boil, then reduce to low heat and simmer.
2. Add honey, cinnamon, star anise and cloves and simmer until fruit is cooked.
3. Enjoy warm or cold, however you like. Poached quince keeps well in the fridge for several days and freezes well.

Delicious ways to serve poached quince:

• Warm and just on it’s own, or served with natural yoghurt, vanilla custard or ice-cream
• Warm and on top of porridge (yum!)
• With muesli
• Mixed with natural yoghurt, nuts and seeds as a snack
• In a crumble crumble – in a baking dish add poached quinces, top with your favourite crumble mix and bake until your crumble is golden brown
• Add to a cake- mix poached quince into a plain cake mixture for added sweetness, texture and moisture
Lara x