Thea's Thinkings: Homemade Sweets

Homemade Sweets

6 Comments

Hello!

Last week I made some homemade fruit pastille as a sneaky treat to myself.

Luckily for me they are (almost) guilt free. I love the idea of making my own sweets. Not only are they delicious but I can rest my mind knowing they are additive, preservative and sweetener free - just yummy natural fruity goodness.

I'm going to share this simple recipe for Summer berry fruit pastille, but I hope you have a lot of fun experimenting with it and trying different fruit combinations.

Nectarine, Peach, or blackberry also work a treat!

All you're going to need are 4 simple ingredients:

Lemon juice - 1 tablespoon

Strawberries & raspberries - 225g

Liquid Pectin - 15g

200g caster sugar

You'll also need a generous helping of granulated sugar for finishing.

You'll also need:

A heavy set saucepan

A plastic spatula

A cooking thermometer

Fine mesh sieve

10cm square baking tin - greased with sunflower oil and lined with cling film (be sure to cover all the edges)

This should make about 20-25 sweets

1. First you're going to want to clean the fruit and quarter the strawberries. Then transfer these to your saucepan with a tablespoon of caster sugar and half a tablespoon of lemon juice and leave on a low heat until all the sugar has dissolved and fruit has softened.

2. Now you want to take the fruit of the stove and push through a fine sieve to remove all the seeds and measure the weight of the puree.

3. Pour 200g of puree back into your (clean) saucepan, adding the remaining sugar and over a low heat allow all the sugar to dissolve. Bring to a boil and keeping an eye on the thermometer and simmer slowly until mixture reaches 107°C. Be sure to stir regularly to avoid any sticking and burning on the bottom of the pan.

4. Add the remaining lemon juice and pectin to the mixture, whisk well and stirring frequently allow the temperature to reach 107°C again. To check the mixture has reach setting point drop half a teaspoon of mixture into a glass of cold water. If it's ready it should set into a soft ball, if not cook for a further few minutes stirring frequently.

5. Pour the mixture into your baking tin and leave to cool. When cold cover with cling film and leave over night.

6. Finally all you'll need to do is evenly cover a chopping board in granulated sugar and carefully turn the slab out onto the board. Press the slab lightly into the sugar on both sides, and cut it with a greased kitchen knife or small greased cookie cutters. Be sure to cover all the edges in the sugar and tada! Homemade fruit pastille.

Stored in a sealed container and separated with baking paper, these should keep for two weeks.

I hope you like them and enjoy trying out new flavours.

Let me know in the comments below or send me a photo on twitter if you try these I'd love to see how you get on.

Until next time

Bye for now

Top tip 1: Be sure to wear protective gloves as the pan and mixture will reach very high temperatures - I know from experiences.

Top tip 2: If you don't have a fine mesh sieve, using a tea strainer and pushing through with a teaspoon will work perfectly.

Top tip 3: Make sure you use a heavy based saucepan. Heavy based saucepans reduce the chance of sticking and burning on the bottom of the pan which would ruin the delicious fruity flavour.
Top tip 4: If you have one use a plastic spatula. This will make it much easier to get around all the edges of the pan and avoid any mixture sticking and burning.

Top tip 5: If your puree is less than 200g don't worry! As a rule use equal amounts of sugar and puree (e.g. 100g puree - 100g caster sugar) and measure out more or less pectin respectively.

Top tip 6: Use the same instructions to make all sorts of fruity flavours. My favourite is nectarine, but why not try peach and vanilla pod?

About Post Author

Thea

Thea is an Academic, a Crafter and a Musician from the West coast of Wales. She documents her trials and tribualtions as she wanders the maze of challenges that life presents, all while travelling the world and pursuing her dreams.

6 comments:

Rachael31 July 2014 at 23:35
They look so good - I would never have thought about making candy at home, even though I do a lot of baking myself. Delicious!
~ K3 August 2014 at 14:47
I'm so excited to try these out!! I've never baked candy before so a like a new adventure!
Unknown21 February 2017 at 14:53
I can't believe I can make these, never thought about making sweets until now and I wish I saw this recipes sooner for Valentines Day (he would have been super impressed ha!) yummy! Xh