Anonymous Citrus and Chile Pâte de Fruit

Yes, that’s correct:  Anonymous Citrus.  I could have called it “little, orange unidentified citrus fruits that finally grew on my tree and chile pâte de fruit” but I get annoyed by recipes with really long titles. 

The truth is that I still don’t know for certain what kind of tree I have.  I may never be certain.  I thought mandarins until I tasted one.  Then I thought calamondins.  Then I saw Shea’s Rangpur limes and that seemed like a very plausible option.  I do not know what these are.  What I do know is that they are small, extremely tart fruits on a thorny tree that put up so much of a fight when I tried to pick them that I had to clip the stems.  If there are any citrus experts out there, feel free to chime in with suggestions.

Beyond trying to figure out what kind of citrus I have, I’ve also had to figure out what to do with it.  As you may recall, the marmalade didn’t quite work out as well as I had hoped.  In light of that, I didn’t feel the need to make any more with the remaining six cups of prepared fruit.  Since these fruits seem to have a very high pectin content, I felt a pâte de fruit attempt was in order.  

All in all, these turned out better than I anticipated.  I was fairly certain they would set well, but I was more concerned about the taste.  To be honest, these probably will not be my favorite, but I was pleasantly surprised.  The more of them I ate, the more I liked them.  Since the fruits are so tart and lime-like and I think lime and chile are a fabulous combination, I added one-half teaspoon of cayenne.  You don’t even notice it at first.  At first, you get the sweetness from the sugar coating.  Then the tart from the citrus hits you as the pâte de fruit starts to melt in your mouth.  It’s not until you swallow that you notice the chile and then it heats up the back of your throat.  If you don’t like spicy, the cayenne could be reduced or completely omitted.

The recipe is below if you ever find yourself with a surplus of small, extremely tart citrus fruits.

(Apologies for the blurry pics.  I realized halfway through I forgot to change the settings on my camera.)

The set on this was nearly perfect. 

It cut like a dream - no swearing involved.

 

I rolled some in granulated sugar, some in turbinado.

Anonymous Citrus and Chile Pâte de Fruit

Equipment: 

digital scale; large (about 6 quart), heavy-bottomed pan; blender or food processor; mesh sieve; heat-proof silicon spatula; candy thermometer; parchment paper; 9 x 13 baking pan; containers for measuring out ingredients; baking sheet for finished candies

Ingredients:

12 - 13 Rangpur limes, calamondin oranges or other small sour oranges

579 g water, divided (575 g + 4 g)

1350 g granulated sugar, divided (135 g + 1215 g)

1/4 – 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (totally optional)

31 g powdered pectin (I used Ball flex-batch pectin)

200 g light corn syrup

4 g citric acid (also called sour salt)

Non-stick cooking spray

Granulated or turbinado sugar for rolling

Quarter the citrus and thinly slice, removing seeds as you go.  (Or check out Shea’s method of preparing citrus.)  Add the sliced citrus and 575 g of the water to the large pan.  Bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Simmer five minutes, remove from heat and let sit 8 hours or overnight.

Spray a little bit of the cooking spray on the bottom of the baking pan to keep the parchment in place.  Line it with parchment on the bottom and all sides.  I make diagonal cuts from the corners to make the parchment sheet fit in the pan better.  Lightly spray the parchment with cooking spray and set the pan aside.

After the fruit has sat and cooled, puree it with its liquid in batches in the blender or food processor.  Pour the puree through the mesh sieve into a container.  Rinse out the pan, set it on the scale and zero out the weight of the pan.  Measure 1350 g of the citrus puree into the pan.

Over medium heat, bring the puree up to 120°F on the candy thermometer.  Meanwhile, combine the 135 g of sugar with all of the pectin and stir to combine.  When the puree reaches 120°F, add the sugar/pectin mixture and stir well to dissolve.  Bring the mixture up to a boil.  (This may take some time.  Stir occasionally to keep from scorching on the bottom.)  When a full boil is achieved, boil for one minute then add the remaining sugar and the corn syrup.  Stir to dissolve the sugar. 

Continue to cook over medium heat until the mixture reaches 223°F.  (Of note, this is the standard temperature for pâte de fruit but I only made it to about 215°F when I realized mine was already beginning to set.  Use your own judgment.)  Mix the citric acid with the 4 g of water to form a slurry.  When the puree reaches 223°F, pour in the citric acid slurry and cook for 30 seconds.

Immediately pour the mixture into the prepared pan.  Allow the pâte de fruit to cool overnight.

The following day, remove the pâte de fruit from the pan.  Cut into cubes with a thin-bladed knife or cookie cutters sprayed with cooking spray.  Just before serving, coat with sugar and place in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Lucky Number Three

When I was a little girl, my grandma and I would visit my aunt in Southern California nearly every summer.  One year while Grandma and I were visiting, my aunt and her incredibly chic friend, Maxine, decided we should all pile into Maxine’s convertible and drive to Las Vegas.  So we did. 

After arriving, finding a hotel and going up to our room, I wanted to go back to the car to get something.  No one else was interested in leaving the air conditioning and, at that time, no one thought anything of sending me on my own to retrieve what I wanted from the car.  On my way back to our room, a well-dressed gentleman in a smart black suit called out to me, “What’s your number?”  Being the naïve, Midwestern girl I was, I started to look at the room key in my hand for our room number.  “No, no.  Your lucky number!”  Feeling a bit embarrassed I sheepishly replied “Oh.  Three.”  He then flipped me a silver dollar and said he was going to go bet on it.  I was too dumbstruck to even say thank you.  I never saw him again and to this day I wonder what he played and if he won.

I don’t remember every detail of that trip (I think I was only six at the time) but a few things have stuck with me:  I’ll never forget Maxine and her red convertible; I’ll never forget that we stayed at the Stardust; and I’ll never forget “lucky number three”. 

Apparently, the pâte de fruit needed a lucky number three. 

This is only about a quarter of the berries I have.

I bought a flat of strawberries yesterday, doing so with the intent of trying another batch of pâte de fruit.  This time, given the quantity of berries I bought, I decided to go with the full recipe instead of cutting it in half.

While I was in school I had purchased a pea-sized melon baller in anticipation of needing it for a final project.  That need never arose, but I discovered yesterday that it’s an awesome tool for hulling strawberries.  Making quick work of nearly five pounds of berries made it worth it.

Before getting started, I made sure that this time the parchment would be greased.  Instead of buttering it, I sprayed it lightly with our olive oil mister.  The fact that I finally remembered this was a good sign in and of itself.  The next step was to make sure all of my ingredients were assemble and measured out.  (I can’t stress how important this is.) 

This is where I hit a small snag and got a little panicky.  I had run out of sugar 100g – about a half of a cup – shy of what I needed.  A jar of vanilla sugar stashed in the cabinet with my tea came to my rescue.  And since I was using a bit of vanilla sugar, why not toss in a vanilla bean? 

mise en place

The procedure was the same as for the mango-chile pâte de fruit.  I did make sure to whisk the pectin thoroughly this time, and made sure it was at a full boil before adding the glucose and sugar.  So far so good.  I boiled and stirred and dreamed of perfect pâte de fruit.  Waiting until this morning to find out was excruciating.  Could it be?  It could.



These cut like a dream compared to the mango.



Since I wanted to cut even squares, the ruler came out.  To keep it from sticking to the pâte de fruit, I coated the top with sugar before removing it from the pan.  My first hint of success was that when lifting the parchment from the pan, the pâte de fruit separated cleanly from the parchment.  I believe I felt my heart flutter.  I still went through three knives and a pizza cutter trying to decide on the best tool for the job.  In the end, a thin bladed, sharp knife dipped in warm water seemed to do just fine.  They were cutting cleanly and lifting cleanly off of the parchment.  My excitment was building as I rolled them in the turbinado sugar (the only sugar I had left).



While I’m not certain that these are perfect (they're a wee bit soft and extremely sweet), I think I’m thisclose to pâte de perfection.

So Close & Yet So Far

As I was prodding the corner of the pâte de fruit before bed last night, I was really thinking I'd nailed it this time.  Almost.

Beyond the fact that I didn't butter the parchment, cutting these things is a task to try one's patience.  First I tried a cutter dipped in hot water.  Nope.  After washing and drying the cutter, I smeared some butter on it.  Not happening.  I repeated these endeavors with a chef's knife.  Not so much.  My third attempt was a pizza cutter dipped in hot water.  Marginal success.

If you look closely you can see little white pectin blobs in a couple of them.

I say marginal success because these were just shy of having the firm texture I wanted.  So while the pizza cutter did a decent job of cutting, the pieces eventually melded back together.  Although I did get a few nice squares cut, the shape was totally lost when I tried to get them off of the parchment.  I tried to massage them back into shape with a small offset spatula dipped in water but, again, the results were marginal.

While I am a bit frustrated and it's tempting to give up, I'm too close to getting it right to throw in the towel now.  And while these are far from attractive, the taste makes up for their appearance. 

Given the fact that, by weight, there's more sugar than fruit I really thought they would be toothache sweet like my last batch was.  Surprisingly, not.  Ancho was my first choice for the chile.  The jar turned out to be empty though, so I used the cayenne.  It actually works really well.  It lets the mango flavor come through at first, and then the heat follows it up without being overwhelming.  Other than struggling to get them off of the parchment, I'm not mad at these.



But I still need to figure out how to get the firmer texture.  Do I need to increase the pectin?  Do I need to cook them to a slightly higher temperature?  Temperature may be my issue.  It's difficult to pinpoint 223 degrees F precisely on my Taylor thermometer.  I'm thinking it's time to look into a Maverick digital thermometer.

There are a few other things to clear off my calendar before I can make time to try these again.  Next week I'll be making my caramels for the food blogger bake sale in St. Louis.  And after that I have to do some cupcakes for a tasting with a potential wedding cake client.

In the meantime, this is my recipe.  I recommend the 8" pan vs the 9" x 13" I used, and definitely
BUTTER THE PARCHMENT.

Mango-Chile Pâte de Fruit

1 Tbs butter

13g powdered pectin (1 Tbs)*

625g granulated sugar, divided (about 2-3/4 cups), plus extra for dredging

1g ground cayenne pepper (1/4 tsp)

450g pureed fresh mango (2 cups)

10g glucose (1 tsp)

4g citric acid powder (1/2 tsp)

4g water (1/2 tsp)

Spray an 8” square pan with a small amount of cooking spray, or rub with some butter, and line with parchment.  (The cooking spray/butter keeps the parchment in place.)  Rub enough butter onto the parchment to create a smooth, thin layer.  You may not need it all. 

 In a small bowl, combine the pectin with 60g (1/4 cup) of the sugar and whisk to combine thoroughly.  In a separate bowl, combine 50g (3 Tbs plus 2 tsp) of sugar with the cayenne pepper and whisk to combine.

In a large pot, combine the mango puree and the sugar/cayenne mixture.  Bring to 120°F over medium heat.  Whisk in the sugar/pectin mixture and bring to a boil.  Boil for one minute.

Add the glucose and the remaining 515g (2-1/4 cups) sugar.  Heat to 223°F, stirring to avoid scorching.  Just before the mixture reaches 223°F, combine the citric acid and water.  Stir in the citric acid solution once temperature is reached and cook an additional 30 seconds.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the surface.  Allow to sit, uncovered, for 24 hours before cutting.  Remove from the pan to a cutting board and use a pizza cutter dipped in warm water to cut into squares or try using a buttered cutter to cut into desired shapes.  Dredge in additional granulated sugar.  Coarse turbinado sugar may be pretty as well.

*For this recipe I used Sure-Jell 100% Natural Premium Fruit Pectin

Pâté de Fruition or Pâté de Failure?

AKA:  More About Pâté de Fruit Than You Ever Wanted to Know.

Last month I decided I was going to join the party of attempting pâté de fruit (see April 11 - 13 for that saga).  It didn't work out so well.  Shae of Hitchhiking to Heaven summed this up the best in her post on her attempt entitled Clementine Pâté  de Oops.  But I knew I would try again because sometimes I'm just stubborn that way, and determined a little research would be in order before any further attempts.

I recalled that I had originally found a link for Capfruit's commercial pâté de fruit recipes from the French Pastry School's website so decided to see if I could find it again.  Indeed I could.  This time when I found their recipes for pate de fruit, I didn't have to worry about translating.

One of the problems with other pâté de fruit attempts I'd read about was suggested to be the use of homemade fruit puree versus commercially prepared.  I checked the Capfruit website to see if they listed ingredients for their purees.  What I found is that their purees are 90% fruit and 10% sugar.  Is that extra bit of sugar the reason home purees seemed to have a higher failure rate?  Maybe; but I'm not sure it's the only reason.  Since I was using their recipe for my pâté de fruit, I thought I should try to duplicate their fruit puree.  I decided that I would use the same 90/10 proportions:  for 500 grams of fruit puree (I cut the recipe in half), I used 450 grams of fruit and 50 grams of sugar.

Their recipe also calls for glucose instead of corn syrup and citric acid instead of lemon juice.  Believe it or not, I actually had both of these things.  The glucose came from Hobby Lobby of all places (it's used in cake decorating) and the citric acid from the International Grocery (on hand for my occasional forays into cheese making).  One thing I noticed right away is that the glucose is much, MUCH thicker and stickier than corn syrup.  Again, I'm not sure that would be a cause for failure in and of itself, but perhaps combinations of things . . .

Research in hand, now it was time to get started.


Mise en place:  everything in its place. 


Experience has taught me to be totally prepared before beginning to work with anything involving boiling sugar.  (And note the extremely large cup of coffee to the left.)  I took the time to make sure all of my ingredients were weighed out before beginning.  The recipes were in metric and standard, but since my scale only does 1/8 ounce increments, I went with the metric.  Grams are more precise anyway.  I did try to get volume measurements on all the ingredients, but the weights (metric or standard) will still be more accurate.



Getting a boil on the thick puree without burning it
was a bit of a challenge.



After heating my mango puree, I added powdered pectin mixed in with some of the sugar.  The purpose of this is to try to keep the pectin from clumping up.  That part was definitely not so successful.  Maybe I should have been whisking instead of stirring.  I spent a lot of time chasing pectin globs around trying to crush them on the side of the pan.  This mixture is then brought to a boil and boiled for one minute - kind of like making jelly.  At that point, the glucose and remaining sugar is added and it's cooked to 223 degrees F.  A digital thermometer would be really awesome here.  Once it reaches temperature, the citric acid is stirred in and the mixture is cooked for 30 seconds before pouring into the prepared pan.  Then the really hard part:  it's supposed to set for 24 hours before cutting it.  Antici . . . . . PATION!

I wasn't sure if the 9 x 13 would be big enough,
but as it turns out, it's just a little bit too big. 
I'll just have to be happy with skinny candies.

So I won't know until tomorrow if it's successful, but so far I'm extremely optimistic.  If it really is successful, I'll post my recipe tomorrow.  There was one step I forgot again though:  buttering the parchment.  Hopefully after all of this, they won't be ruined by my inability to get them off of the paper.

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.

Fish & Fruit

Ewww.  Sort of.  Why fish and fruit? 

Fish, actually seafood, because it was on Saturday night's menu.  We had a bag of bay scallops in the freezer that I'd been staring at for about a week before deciding it was time to make ceviche (or seviche) again.  If you've never had or heard of ceviche, it's a Latin American seafood dish that "cooks" the fish with the acid in citrus juice, usually lime.  It took me a long time to build up the courage to try it.  But once I did, I kind of liked it.  I have one go-to recipe that I adapted from Williams-Sonoma's Savoring Fish & Shellfish and I don't usually deviate too far from it.

My favorite ways to eat ceviche.  I love the crunchy with the creamy textures.



These are called "champagne mangoes".  I'd never heard
of them before yesterday.  Pretty tasty though.

Fruit, specifically mangoes, because I got a 5-1/2 pound box yesterday with a new recipe in my head.  Several of the blogs I read have been talking about/trying pate de fruit (PAHT duh fwee - your French lesson for the day).  They look beautiful:  little blocks and hearts and circles of gem colored fruit purees jelled firm and coated in sparkling sugar.  I want to try to make them because I want to eat them.  I've looked up at least 15 different recipes for them, some using pectin, some using gelatin, some using neither.  I'm going to start with an adapted pectin recipe. 





After washing all of the mangoes, I started by
cutting off their "cheeks".  Sounds a bit cruel, no?




Last night  I prepped the mangoes to make the puree.  I really wanted to finish everything last night but it was getting late and being tired does not bode well for the success of an untested recipe.  Especially when I've read about so many others' failures.  So today's project is finishing the mango pate de fruit.


The cheeks are then scored, without cutting through the skin.
If the mangoes are really ripe, this is easier said than done.



The scored mango can be scooped out with a spoon
or cut from the skin with a knife.  I like the spoon
method because it gets more of the fruit.





















One of the things I've noted is the failure rate appears to be higher among those using fruit they puree themselves versus buying commercially prepared fruit puree.  I found myself wondering if the puree was too thin and if the fruit was drained of some of its juice before pureeing.  So I'm going to try letting my cubed mangoes drain a bit before processing  and sieving them.  We'll see how it goes.


But thinking about ceviche and mango instead of "fish and fruit", has me thinking that may not be such a bad combination after all. 

Scallop Ceviche

8 oz bay scallops, thawed if frozen

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice, divided

1 cup halved grape tomatoes

1 red Serrano chile, minced

2 Tbs olive oil

1 large, ripe avocado

Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1 Tbs finely chopped cilantro (or flat-leaf parsley if you think cilantro is vile)

Rinse the scallops in cold water.  Remove the “foot” if desired.  (This is the muscle on the side where the scallop attaches to the shell.  It’s usually slightly more opaque than the rest of the scallop.  I remove them because they are a bit tougher than I prefer.)  Place the scallops in a glass bowl and pour over all but two tablespoons of the lime juice.  Refrigerate for an hour, stirring occasionally to make sure all of the scallops get to bathe in the lime juice.  The scallops are done when they turn milky white and opaque.

In a larger glass bowl, add the tomatoes, chile remaining two tablespoons of lime juice and olive oil.  Cut the avocado in half, remove the pit and either scoop out the flesh with a melon baller or cut into cubes.  Add to the bowl and stir to combine.

Drain the lime juice from the scallops and add them to the tomatoes and avocado.  Season to taste with the salt and pepper and sprinkle with the cilantro or parsley.

I like to serve this with crispy blue corn tortilla chips or rustic, crunchy bread toasted with olive oil, salt and pepper.  It provides a nice texture contrast. 

Serves two nicely as a meal, or four as an appetizer.