Trouble making fruit cheeses

I’m hoping to get some help from the collective culinary wisdom. We have a a supply of medlars and are attempting Medlar Cheese and Medlar Jelly.

The jelly is working well - simply strain through a cloth and collect the juices to use.

Making cheese with the pulp is harder. It is supposed to set firm so that it can be sliced, but I’m struggling. It ends up too soft and too wet. I need to trouble shoot this, as I’m sure that a wet batch won’t keep long term. Properly made it is supposed to keep indefinitely.

I’m going to make a second batch in the next few days. My second batch is going to be something like this:

Approx 2 kg of fruit. Gently broken open by hand, then simmer for about an hour with about 1 litre of water. When reduced to a pulp, put it through a colander in small batches to separate out the pulp from seeds and skins.

At this point the pulp needs to be dried - hang in muslin cloth for 24 hours to get as much water out as possible. Keep the liquid for jelly.

Weigh the pulp and add sugar (100g for every 150g pulp). Return to the stove on a low heat and simmer it to dissolve the sugar properly. Add spices etc...

I just saw where Weird Explorer on Youtube made a fruit cheese, though I don't recall what fruit he used. Perhaps the process is the same. I'lll see if I can figure out what video it was and post it.

That was easier to find than I expected.



The product he ends up with is certainly firm. Hopefully the same process would work for medlar.

Does the jelly set up without additional pectin? If not, maybe adding some apple, quince, or less ripe medlar for the pectin would help.

I would also try spreading the pulp out on a tray to let more water evaporate.