There was the time when I thought that quince, a fruit that looks like a bright yellow oversized pear, was hard, astringent, and impossible to eat. That was surely before I tried ayva tatlısı, a classic Turkish dessert of quince poached in sugar syrup. Ayva tatlısı is a good example of how carefully you should pick a right cooking method to fully unleash the flavor of a seasonal ingredient. A few hours of gentle cooking in the sugar syrup do wonders to quinces: every tiny cell of the fruit gets saturated with the viscous syrup, and the quince transforms into a soft candy perfumed with a floral fragrance that even the most skilled perfumer at the Spice Market would not be able to replicate.
Secrets and Urban Legends of Ayva Tatlısı (Quince Dessert)
Quince and Walnut Cake Styled as Banana Bread
Baking is just like your boyfriend going for a boys’ night out. In baking you can only hope you have picked a reliable recipe and measured your ingredients right. Stove top cooking always gives you a chance to open the lead and fix things going wrong. Not the baking: once you send your creation to the oven you can’t control the outcome anymore. Same with the boys’ night out. If you pick the right guy in whom you trust and if you have enough self-confidence you can wish him a great boys’ night out with a light heart.
