Jam-Filled Muffins

The parking lot for the hiking trail in the village of Sirishtnik is a small square at the end of the village, near some abandoned houses. The people and the houses are now gone, but the fruit trees are still giving fruit and mid-November there were some scattered quinces on the grass under the quince tree at the end of the parking lot. Last year, when we hiked there more or less at the same time of year, we gathered a handful of fruits and made quince jam, which came out very aromatic and delicious.

This year the quince harvest was even bigger and we made almost a dozen and a half jars of jam, which should last us years :) Here is the method and recipe we applied this time:

The total amount of quinces we gathered was 3.5 kg. We washed them and put them in hot water to boil until soft, so that they would be easier to cut and clean. Then we took them out of the water (which we preserved), let them cool and cleaned them. After all cores were removed, the harvest yielded about 2.5 kg quince meat. To that we added about 1 l of the water, in which the fruit was cooked and blended them with a hand blender. Then we added 1.8 kg sugar to the mash and let it stay in a cool place for a couple of hours.

Once the sugar had completely melted and soaked in the quince mash, we added the juice of half a lime and brought the jam to cook at medium heat for an hour. once the jam was cooked, we poured the hot jam into the clean jars and turned them upside down to cool, no boiling of the jars is required.

I used the jam to make a batch of jam-filled muffins. This is probably my fifth batch of muffins with jam core lately. I've been experimenting with the batter and the filling method and though I wouldn't claim that I've nailed it, I am pretty happy with my latest results:

Ingredients for the muffins:

• 2 eggs
• 80 g sugar
• 200 g yogurt 
• 70 g sunflower oil
• 200 g flour 
• 5 g baking powder + a pinch of baking soda
• 5 g spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves) + a pinch of salt 

Preparation:

Beat the eggs with the sugar, add the oil and yogurt and mix. Stir in the flour, mixed with the baking powder and the spices. Distribute the batter in 12 muffin forms. Place a teaspoon of jam in the center of each muffin form, stirring it lightly to push the jam inside the batter. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 25 min, until a toothpick test confirms readiness.

Enjoy with your fresh coffee or tea.