Fruit Glue

Pate de fruit translates to "fruit paste".  I think I can give Elmer's a run for their money.  When I read Shae's post on Hitchhiking to Heaven about her attempts at clementine pate de fruit, her title of "pate de oops" about sums up my attempt at mango pate de fruit.  Mind you, I won't say mine sucks - it tastes okay.  But I definitely won't be cutting this stuff into cute little hearts or blocks or anything else.

So as you can see, I've scraped it off of the parchment (a little butter love may be called for next time) and into a pan.  I'm not giving up . . . yet.  There are a number of things that could have gone wrong with this recipe.

1. It was a franken-recipe - one I put together from several others I found.
2. The variation of temperatures on the recipes I found ranged from "boil" to 220F to 227F.  It's quite possible I didn't get it to a high enough temperature or keep it at temperature long enough.
3. Given the constant rain, yesterday was probably not the best day to be working with something high in sugar.
4. I should have poured it into a pan with a larger surface area (but I just didn't want skinny candies).
5. Pectin can be temperamental with some fruits.  Even though I left it set overnight, it may not have been long enough.

What am I going to do with it?  I'll boil it again and try reach a higher temperature.  If that doesn't work, I have a lot of really sweet, sticky mango jam.  But first I have to go make some buttercream.  The wedding cake is still due Saturday regardless of my pate de fruit failure.