It’s at this time of the year that I mourn the gradual disappearance of my favourite summer fruits – rosy cherries, cherubic peaches, apricots and their ilk which dwindle from the fruit shops. In their place however is one of those truly seasonal fruits, the quince. Unlike fruits like berries that are supposedly seasonal yet appear all year round in various watery and tasteless guises, quinces are available only from around about mid March to June. They are plentiful and very cheap at the moment.

So it’s time to grab a bagful and pot roast them a la Maggie Beer, to later serve with ice cream or baked between a blanket of fragrant frangipane, pickle them to serve with potted meat or transform them into a slab of dark quince paste. The task of making quince paste is something I seldom look forward to; the rigorous stirring of a spitting and heaving pot of quince is about as painful an experience as keeping a vigilant eye on a batch of angry rhubarb jam. The end product however, keeps forever and is glorious with a wedge of Manchego cheese, a classic pairing.

While trying to decide what to do with the quinces, they can also look equally lovely piled in a bowl, on the kitchen counter. I love the look of this knobbly fruit with their gorgeous burnished yellow skins and that wonderfully mysterious scent that permeates the whole room. The Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite considered the quince a sacred fruit and in ancient times, they were featured in wedding ceremonies as a symbol of happiness and fertility. The most amazing thing for me about this fruit is that the flesh of quinces are, in their raw form, they are astringent, colourless and practically inedible. When cooked however, the application of heat and acidity over time, transforms them into amazing perfumed, ruby coloured fruit. Kitchen alchemy, at it’s very best.

A week after purchasing my quinces, I have finally consigned them to a pot of candying liquid, to be eventually turned into an attempt at Tartine’s recipe for Panforte with candied quince. Will keep you posted!

This is my entry for that fantastic Weekend Herb Blogging event which Pat of Up a Creek without a Patl is hosting this week.

This coming 16th of May 2007 is LIVESTRONG Day, an initiative by the Lance Armstrong Foundation to raise awareness in the community about cancer survivorship. I can’t think of anyone whose life has not been touched by cancer in some way. [Edit: After I wrote this, I received an email from a friend letting me know that she’ll be flying over to New Zealand to see an aunt who has terminal cancer]. It is important to remember those who lost their battle against it and to celebrate those who are still fighting it or have successfully fought it.

As part of LIVESTRONG Day, Barbara of Winos and Foodies is hosting an event called A Taste of Yellow. In support of this event, I have baked a batch of bright yellow lemon sour cream cakes. Lemons are usually the first thing that come to mind when I think about yellow foods. I love them because the juice and their zest add a certain tangy freshness to desserts and work wonders in savoury foods by cutting the richness and giving a dish balance. For me, they are a must-have accompaniment to freshly shucked oysters, poppyseed cake, hot-from-the-pan crepes, and fish ‘n’ chips.

These cakes, from a recipe by Julie Le Clerc, are forkfuls of moist, lemony goodness, made even more special by the topping of lemon sugar.

Lemon sour cream cakes with lemon sugar :

125g butter
3/4 cup sugar
finely grated zest of one lemon
3 eggs
1/2 tsp lemon essence
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 160’C. Grease and flour a 12-hole muffin tin.

Cream butter and sugar until pale. Beat in zest, eggs, lemon essence (if you have it) and sour cream.

Fold in sifted dry ingredients. Pour into prepared tins and bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Allow to cool before removing from cake tins. Spoon a little lemon sugar over each and this will soak in and set to form a crunchy crust.

Lemon sugar :

juice of 3 lemons
1/2 cup caster sugar

Mix juice and sugar together and drizzle over cakes as soon as they are removed from the oven.