Candied Pumpkin. A Step-by-step Recipe With A Photo At Home

2023 Author: Ava Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 07:13

Even if your family does not like pumpkin dishes, these sweet orange candies will fly fast and cheerfully, like red leaves from an autumn tree! The taste of candied pumpkin is similar to gummies or the oriental sweetness of Turkish delight in a thin layer of powdered sugar. Pieces of amber that have preserved the sun, the light and scent of summer for the winter - that's what candied pumpkin fruits are! There are many different recipes: with oranges, cinnamon, honey. We will cook candied pumpkin with lemon: this sunny citrus, added to the basic recipe, will add a slight pleasant sourness to the dessert, which is quite useful - there is a lot of sugar in the syrup, and the pumpkin itself is sweet.

Cooking candied pumpkin fruits is quite time-consuming and takes two to three days, but it is absolutely not tiring, since your participation is required only four times five minutes each. Plus, cut the pumpkin first and roll in powdered sugar at the end of cooking. So while the season of the red autumn beauty pumpkin lasts, I recommend preparing a simple treat for your family - this is much more useful than candied fruits in stores!

Pumpkins of muscat varieties are best suited for cooking candied fruits - those that are shaped like bottles: they have the sweetest and brightest pulp. However, you can try to make a delicacy from round pumpkins.

If you prefer the orange flavor, you can use orange juice and zest instead of lemon slices. For lovers of cinnamon, put a cinnamon stick in the syrup, and if you don't like its aroma, replace it with a clove bud or don't use spices at all.

• Cooking time: 2 days
• Servings Per Container: Approximately 150 g candied fruits and 100 ml syrup

Ingredients for making candied pumpkin

• 400 g raw pumpkin;
• 200 g sugar (1 glass);
• Half a lemon;
• 1 apple;
• Cinnamon stick;
• 1/3 - 1/2 glass of water;
• 1.5-2 tablespoons of powdered sugar.

Method for making candied pumpkin fruits

Peel the pumpkin, rinse and cut into cubes about 2 by 2 cm. Do not make pieces too small - boiled down, candied fruits can turn out to be too dry and tough, but we need soft and elastic. It is more convenient to take the pulp from the long end of the pumpkin, and use the round part for other recipes, such as pumpkin muffins or porridge.

Wash the lemon by rubbing the peel thoroughly with a brush under running hot water to wash off the layer of wax that is sometimes used to cover citrus fruits for preservation during transportation. Then we steam it with boiling water for 5-7 minutes - the bitterness will go away from the zest and the fragrant lemon peel can be added to the syrup.

We will also wash the apple and remove the peel from it - for the recipe it is exactly what you need. What for? Apple peel contains pectin - a natural gelling element that will help candied fruits to acquire the correct structure: not to boil in syrup, but to become like marmalade. The gelling properties of quince are even more pronounced, as you will learn from the recipe for candied quince.

Pour pumpkin cubes into an enamel or stainless steel pan, add apple peel and lemon, cut into the finest slices. I like this option more than grated zest and squeezed juice. Then the translucent sweet and sour slices are great to add to tea, and they are also delicious on their own and resemble sweet lemon chips.

We fill the contents of the pan with sugar and put in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours, but better at night. The pumpkin will let the juice flow, the sugar will melt, and syrup will form in the saucepan.

We add a little water - so much that the workpieces are completely covered with it, and put on the stove. Heat without a lid over a fire slightly less than average, bringing to a boil. When the syrup boils, we time it and boil for 5 minutes. Then we remove from heat and set aside until it cools completely - this is important!

If you can't wait impatiently until the syrup and candied fruit preparations have completely cooled down and start heating them again, there is a risk that the pieces will boil. It will make jam, but not candied fruits … Therefore, we patiently wait for 3-4 hours. You can safely forget about candied fruits for now and go for a walk in the autumn park!

Then heat the syrup a second time, boil for five minutes, let it cool. We repeat 3-4 times in total. Gradually, the syrup becomes thicker and the pumpkin cubes become more transparent.

At this stage, you can stop and canned candied fruits in syrup, getting a jam similar to "pumpkin honey" with pieces of pulp. If you prefer "candy" more, then continue!

At the end of the preparation, the syrup is already noticeably less. In terms of density, it resembles fresh honey. Having boiled candied fruits for the 4th time, we catch them with a slotted spoon, without waiting for it to cool down. Hot syrup is thinner and easier to drain. Taking out a portion of candied fruits on a slotted spoon, wait for the syrup to drain, and then transfer them to a plate.

We leave for a couple of hours. During this time, the syrup remaining on the pumpkin pieces will drain onto the plate. We transfer candied fruits to parchment paper, at a distance of a couple of centimeters from each other, in one layer. The candied fruits are almost ready, it remains to dry them so that excess moisture evaporates.

There are two ways to dry candied fruits: fast and slow. The first one suits you if you have an airfryer, electric dryer or convection oven that can be set to low temperatures. It should be dried at a low temperature so as not to dry out, otherwise the candied fruits will become very hard (not chewable). For different ovens, the temperature and time differ: from 50 ° С with the door closed to 90-100 ° С with a slightly open one; from 2-3 to 4 hours.

I prefer the natural way to dry at room temperature - it certainly won't dry out. Putting candied fruits on parchment, put in a dry place and leave until morning. If the kitchen is warm and dry, they are ready the next day. If still too wet, turn over to the other side. If necessary, change the parchment and leave for another half day.

We check by sight and touch: ready-made candied fruits are elastic, soft in the middle, and even a little sticky outside. Do not dry them too much, otherwise the powder will not stick.

This is how homemade candied pumpkin fruits glow beautifully in the sun!

Now you can roll them on all sides in powdered sugar. Fine and delicate powder is better suited for this purpose than granulated sugar: the smallest "specks" stick to the surface of candied fruits better than large crystals of sugar, and when poured into a container for storage do not allow the pieces to stick together into one large candied fruit.

You can store candied pumpkin seeds all winter in hermetically sealed containers - for example, in glass jars with screw lids.

Or in syrup, like jam, then we omit the stages of drying and rolling in powder.

To soak the cakes, dilute the syrup with boiled water 1: 1.

Candied pumpkin fruits are delicious and just like that, and a bite with tea. You can decorate cakes with them, add them to baking dough along with raisins and dried fruits, and soak biscuits with syrup, put it in tea instead of sugar. And if you save candied fruits in syrup, you get a very beautiful amber jam.

With such “pieces of the sun”, autumn will be fine and winter will be warm!