living in the woods and making stuff

So, I finished the quince jelly, which turned into lightly quince flavored vanilla syrup…

I ran out of sugar, and my mom had a pretty jar of vanilla sugar. So… I decided to use the vanilla sugar for the quince and I ended up not cooking the mixture long enough (I think) and the result was that the jelly didn’t gel as much as it is supposed to.

When I had my mom sample it she was trying really hard to tell me that it tasted like quince, but since she wasn’t particularly familiar with quince, she had a hard time detecting it. So now I have three jars of quince vanilla syrup that I am planning to use to sweeten poached pears in the winter… the jars look pretty anyway, the vanilla seeds are suspended in the mixture.

Vanilla Sugar

My mom had some really fresh organic vanilla beans from a family farm in Costa Rica. She puts several beans in for 3 or 4 cups (or more) of sugar. You can leave the bean whole, or scrape out the seeds, which mix nicely with the sugar.

This sugar works really well for lots of things! To flavor hot milk, jams, pies, spiced fruits, etc!!