Deliciously delicious candied pumpkin at home
Tired of shop candy? Try making candied pumpkin at home. Both kids and adults will like this dessert. Firstly, it will be made from purely natural products, which is much more useful than store products. Secondly, the use of different additives will allow you to get a completely new sweetness each time. And thirdly, beautifully packaged candied fruits will be a pleasant surprise when you visit your friends. Just don't forget to bring them with you.
How to choose a pumpkin for cooking candied fruits
The key to a quality dessert is the correct choice of the main ingredient - pumpkin:
- Delicate and too juicy pumpkin varieties are not suitable for preparing dessert.
- Use only ripe fruits for candied fruits.
- Fibrous and coarse candied fruits are obtained from fodder pumpkin varieties.
- Good candied fruits are obtained from ripe dessert varieties of pumpkin. You need to knock on the side of the fruit. If you hear a clear, boomy sound, this is a good base for dessert.
When making a homemade dessert, use sugar or honey. Oranges, lemons, tangerines, quince or apples are used as additional ingredients. Of the spices for making dessert, cinnamon sticks, star anise, nutmeg, vanilla pods and cloves are suitable
Unusually delicious are candied pumpkin varieties: Winter sweet, Honey dessert, Yellow centner, Gray Volzhskaya, Gribovskaya, Parisian gold.
Cooking candied pumpkin at home in a dryer
Even if you don't like pumpkin, still try making delicious candied fruits from it at home. They can easily replace sweets. An electric dryer will help you with this.
Wash a small pumpkin weighing a little more than 2 kg and dry it with a paper towel. Cut into several large pieces for easy selection of soft fibers and seeds.
Do not throw away the harvested seeds. It is better to rinse and dry them. It is a great addition to breakfast cereals and casseroles. You can also eat seeds just like that, they are a source of many useful elements necessary for the body.
Remove the hard skin. It is better to do this with a sharp knife or vegetable cutter, peeling off the peel in small pieces. Cut the peeled pulp into 0.5 cm thick slices. Place the slices in a deep bowl and sprinkle with sugar. Calculate the amount of sugar based on the proportion - for 1 kg of pulp, 300 g of sugar must be used. After 6 hours, put the bowl on a low heat, bring to a boil and cook for 2 minutes.
Leave the pumpkin slices again for 6 hours to cool completely. Putting the bowl on fire a second time, add 10 g of citric acid, boil for 2 minutes and put out the fire. Check the pumpkin pieces for softness. If the slices are still firm, repeat the boiling procedure after 6 hours.
Ready pumpkin pieces must be removed from the syrup. Colander to help you. The syrup should drain well. Pour the cooled sweet syrup into a bottle, and then use in the preparation of other desserts.
Put sweet slices on the grid of the electric dryer and start the device. During the drying process, swap the grates to get evenly dried candied fruits. The finished slices should be soft on the inside and transparent and slightly sticky on the outside.
Roll the ready-made candied fruits in 150 g of powdered sugar and you can delight your family with a self-made dessert.
Sweet candied pumpkin "in a hurry"
The cooking time for the sweet slices can be shortened by not waiting for the pumpkin juice to emerge. It is enough just to cook the syrup and pour over the sliced blanks. Use the most common starch to keep the shape in pieces during the preparation of the dessert.
Ingredients:
- pumpkin pulp - 1 kg;
- glass of water;
- starch - 1 tbsp. l .;
- 2 tbsp. Sahara.
Cooking dessert:
- Boil the syrup.
- Pour the hot syrup over the pumpkin pieces and wait until the contents of the basin have cooled.
- Dissolve starch in a little water.
- Pour the diluted starch into a bowl of pumpkin.
- Cook until thickened over low heat. Strain the workpiece through a colander.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
- Arrange cooked candied fruits and dry in the air or in the oven at low temperature.
How to make candied pumpkin at home in a slow cooker
If you have in your kitchen multicooker, it's time to use it for making delicious homemade candied fruits. True, you won't be able to cook a lot of dessert at a time, but you can please the kids.
Ingredients:
- chopped pumpkin - 400 g;
- a couple of cloves or a cinnamon stick;
- 300 g of sugar.
Put pumpkin slices in one layer in a multicooker bowl. Sprinkle with sugar and refrigerate overnight. On the second day, add spices and start preparing delicious treats.
The order of work of the multicooker:
- Set the "Baking" mode and cook the pumpkin for 25 minutes. Cool down.
- To let the pumpkin pieces absorb the spicy syrup, set the "Stew" mode for 15 minutes. Allow to cool.
- Open the lid of the multicooker. Set the "Baking" mode and bake candied fruits for about 15 minutes. Turn the slices over several times. Cool down.
- Place the pumpkin pieces on parchment paper and pat dry. Grind with powdered sugar before serving.
Candied pumpkin fruits with spices and oranges for your kids
You can give pumpkin dessert a new taste by carefully changing additional ingredients and using different aromatic spices.
For this recipe for 1 kg of pumpkin, prepare:
- 3 g each nutmeg and vanillin;
- 100 ml of water;
- one apple and one orange;
- sugar - 250 g;
- 2 tbsp. l. powdered sugar;
- 2 cinnamon sticks;
- cloves - 2 pcs.
Stages of cooking candied fruits:
- Remove the peel from the pumpkin, remove the seeds, and cut the pulp into 2 by 2 cm cubes.
- Rinse thoroughly orangeto remove all harmful substances. Remove the peel and scald with boiling water. Leave in hot water for at least 5 minutes. This procedure will help remove bitterness from the skin. Cut into large pieces.
- Remove the peel from the apple and use it to cook candied fruits.
- Cut the orange into slices.
- Put all the ingredients in a deep bowl with a thick bottom. Cover with sugar and leave in the refrigerator overnight.
- Add water in the morning if necessary to completely cover the candied fruit blank. Put all the spices and put the bowl on the fire. From the moment of boiling, cook for 5 minutes. Then let the workpiece cool completely. Repeat the cooking procedure 3 times.
- After boiling candied fruits for the fourth time, remove them with a slotted spoon to remove excess syrup. Put the pieces on a wide plate so that they do not touch each other and hold for a little.
- Put the slightly cooled candied pumpkin fruits on a baking sheet. Preheat the oven to 100 ° C and place the baking sheet with the blank. The oven door does not need to be closed. Dry candied fruits for 1.5 hours, then lower the temperature and continue drying for another 2 hours.
You can not remove the peel from the orange, but cut the pulp together.
Candied fruits can also be dried at room temperature. To do this, simply lay out on a board covered with parchment and leave in a dry place. If necessary, turn the pumpkin pieces so that they dry evenly.
Candied honey
To implement the recipe for 1 kg of pumpkin, you must prepare:
- 100 ml of natural honey;
- lemon;
- 200 g sugar;
- powdered sugar 3 tbsp. l;
- half a teaspoon of cinnamon.
Dessert preparation steps:
- Peel the pumpkin and cut into cubes. Cover with sugar and refrigerate for 3 hours. If possible, leave the container with pumpkin overnight.
- Drain the released juice into a separate container, add finely chopped lemon and honey together with the peel. Cook for 3 minutes.
- Pour the pumpkin pieces with hot syrup. Put on fire. Simmer until the syrup is thick. This will take about 2 hours.
- Place the pumpkin slices in a colander. Take out the pumpkin as carefully as possible and put it on the parchment, laid on a baking sheet.
- Set the warm-up timer in the oven to 60 ° C and let the candied fruit stand for an hour. Then lower the temperature to 50 ° C and stand until the dessert is ready. When candied fruit is broken, the pulp should not crunch, but be firm.
Never throw away the syrup remaining from the preparation of candied fruits! This is a great base for making delicious candies.
Note to the hostess:
- The pumpkin must be cut into slices of the same size so that they dry out evenly.
- Slices for making candied fruits should be no more than 3 cm in width and length.
- If you are using frozen pumpkin, you do not need to defrost it before cooking. Therefore, before freezing, cut the fruit immediately into slices of the desired size.
- Cooked candied pumpkin at home can be used as decoration for pastries, rolls or cakes.
- You can simply pour over dried pumpkin slices with natural honey, it will be a jam of the original taste.