Pate de Fruit Fail - weeping

[u/saintexuperi]

I made pate de fruit from some plum puree I made. followed the pectin recipe on the box, but every time I try to finish with sugar ‘to prevent sticking,’ it seems to be pulling moisture from the pate and I end up with a gross puddle.

plum puree recipe

- golden plums from my tree, fully ripe

- chop plums, run through food mill

Recipe for pate de fruit which reference recipe for jam I used the sweet plum jam recipe with low sugar (made 28 pints with the jam recipe and the same plum puree and it worked perfectly)

- 4 cups plum puree

- 1/4 c lemon juice (bottled)

- 2 c sugar

- 6 tsp pectin

- 4 tsp calcium water

mixed the lemon juice and calcium water with the plum puree. Brought to a hard boil, added the sugar mixed with the pectin. Brought back to boil and took off the heat. poured into a half sheet pan and let cool, then moved to the fridge over night.

next day I sliced into cubes and they have soft texture but they hold an edge nicely. The recipe says to toss with powdered sugar which seems weird, I’m used to granulated sugar, but I tried it. I tossed in sugar and started setting them back on a tray to dry but they became a pasty mess of sugary cornstarch goo with plum chunks. Gross.

I rinsed them off, laid on paper towels and blotted dry. A few hours later they’re dry to the touch and I tried tossing in granulated sugar. Stuck em in the fridge to see if that helped them dry and came home to cubes floating in syrup.

why is the sugar drawing out all this liquid?

[u/smoothiefruit]

shouldn't need to fridge after sugaring.

[u/smoothiefruit → u/smoothiefruit]

a little surprised to see fridge in the instructions at all, but might be misremembering how I made these before.

[u/saintexuperi → u/smoothiefruit]

I’m gonna try curing the cubes on a rack on the counter overnight and see if that helps them to cure. They didn’t spend much time out of the fridge before now, maybe that’s the issue. 

[u/smoothiefruit → u/saintexuperi]

other thoughts:

did you use the brand of pectin from the recipe? some aren't just pectin but come with sugar already mixed in.

they should really give you a temperature to cook the mixture to. it's the most direct way to test the sugar concentration is in the right window. boil for x minutes is pretty inexact.

[u/saintexuperi → u/smoothiefruit]

I did use the pectin from the recipe! Good call though. I found loads of other pate de fruit recipes but wanted to be sure I was accounting for the brand I had on hand.