Making Cajeta de Membrillo

Cajeta is a candy that is made from a fruit. The cajeta that was made by Ariana's Abuelito, and help from others, is membrillo, or quince. A quince is related to apples and pears. They are a golden yellow and pear shaped. The process of making this took two days. During the first part of the day, Abuelito and Ariana's Uncle Francisco "Pancho" cut the membrillos in smaller parts and deseeded them. They had two huge bagfuls to do.
Towards the evening, Abuelito set up a tub full of water to boil. He had it sitting on top of a gas flame.
He placed some of the membrillos in a basket and then once the water was boiling, placed the basket in the water.

Here's the rest of the fruit waiting to be boiled. He used a long wooden paddle to stir the membrillos and take them out of the water.



Once the fruit is soft, it's ready to be taken out.

It took a while to boil the fruit, about 4 hours I'm guessing.

The fruit has to be soften so it can be grounded up. Early the next morning, they took the boiled fruit into town, Totatiche, where there was a special blender to do this.

So now it is the consistency of thick paste. Here's Ariana, her cousin and Aunt Chaya scooping it into a bowl so they can mix sugar into it.

Then it is poured into the tub over a flame and constantly stirred.

Once it gets a certain color and thickness it is then ready to be poured into buckets.

Here's Francisco "Pancho" stirring the cajeta. They let me try stirring it and it was super hard. I couldn't really do it. You have to constantly stir it or it will get scorched.

An overview of how everything was set up.

The cajeta sitting and cooling.

You have to let it thicken before you can eat it. It will end up having a thick texture, almost gelatin like. It is pretty sweet and very good. After witnessing how this confectionery is made, I have a deep appreciation for it. It is very good with milk. 

Next blog: Xochimilco and the Island of the Dolls