Autumnal Generosity Cakes (or Spiced Quince Cakes)

I am lucky to have a very generous friend and colleague called Hannah, she is the sort of friend who will make you a cushion from your favourite fabric or buy you a g&t when you've spent all your money on a silly hat. Hannah never wants anything back, she is generosity epitomised. Last week Hannah gave me a bag of gold, well gold fruit anyway, 5 large quinces.

Here are 5 reason to love quince:

• Quinces are beautiful and ugly at the same time, like a handsome man with a sexy scar.
• Quinces smell like nothing you've ever smelt before, a cross between pear and bubblegum with a hint of mango.
• Quinces are a magic fruit that turns from golden to deep pink by the magic of cooking.
• Quinces are old fashioned and majestic, they make me want to paint Dutch-style still lives.
• Quinces are in season and will be until December.

If I were a fruit I think I would aspire to be a quince, they are pretty special with a rich British history, hard to get hold of but worth it. They some how manage to seem terribly exotic, but are as British as strawberries and cream. Having said that I'd quite like to be a pink gooseberry too. What fruit would you be?

I had never cooked quince before and had only eaten it in it's jelly form which I love with cheese. But I'm a bit sick of preserving at the moment, I really don't need anymore jars of things cluttering up my tiny kitchen. So I decided to make cakes.

The recipe below is a combination of several other recipes and keeps amazingly well, I made them on Sunday and had the last one on Thursday, it was still moist and soft, that's the magic of baking with fruit. This recipe provides you with 2 days worth of pudding, a poached quince to serve with cream on Friday night and an rich cake to have with a cup of tea on Saturday. You will probably end up with about 1kg of poached quince which will keep well in it's poached liquor for 2 weeks.

Quince has a pear-like texture which Mr. F hates, I think he must be mad. But since these cakes were born out of generosity I made him an apple version. If you aren't keen on quince, or you don't have a generous friend who gives you quinces, use a sweet apple. You won't need to pre-poach the apples, they will soften up in the oven.

Recipe

Makes 12 cakes.

FOR THE POACHED QUINCE

600g caster sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1 lemon, sliced

4 cloves

1 bay leaf

FOR THE CAKE

200g of unsalted butter at room temperature

4 medium free range eggs

200g dark brown sugar sugar

100g ground almonds

200g self-raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

300g of poached quince

• Put the cinnamon, lemon, bay, poaching sugar, cloves and 1litre of water into a large saucepan.
• Peel, quarter and core your quince. Do this as quickly as possible to prevent browning and drop them into the saucepan as soon as they are peeled. Now bring the pan to a simmer for 2 hours. The fruit will try to bob out of it's poaching liquor so put a plate on top of them to keep them down.
• After 2 hours check that they are tender, if not give them another 30 minutes of simmering.
• Once the quince in completely cold weigh 300g (cover the rest and keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks) and cut a few slices from the prettiest pieces, place them in the bottom of 12 well-greased cake tins.
• Pre-heat your oven to gas 3.
• To make your cake batter, cream the sugar and butter with a wooden spoon until it is really light then add the eggs one at a time.
• Sift in the flour and baking powder, then fold in the ground almonds.
• Roughly chop the remaining quince and fold it into the batter. Fill the cake tins 3 quarters of the way up and bake for 20mins, or until a knife inserted in the centre of the cake comes our clean.
• Remove the cakes form the oven and allow to cool for 10mins before turning out onto a wire rack.