They Can Almost Get a Tween in Trouble: Raspberry-Mint Pâtes de Fruits

I made an awful lot of candy while my oven was broken, but I felt like I was getting into a bit of a rut with caramels. I made apple cider caramels from King Arthur Flour; Donna Hay's salted peanut caramels (a variation of her cardamom and pistachio caramels); Helen Goh and Yotam Ottolenghi's honey, macadamia, and coconut caramels; Samantha Seneviratne's salted cashew caramels; and Joanne Chang's chocolate almond cocoa nib caramels (my only caramel fail -- I ended up with brittle bits of toffee instead of chewy caramels, although they were delicious nonetheless). So to break up the monotony, I decided to try something totally different -- Tish Boyle's "Raspberry-Mint Pâtes de Fruits" from Flavorful. 

I've always loved jellied fruit candies (my favorites are Sunkist Fruit Gems) but never tried making them myself before. They were surprisingly easy. First, I prepared the mint leaves by boiling them for 10 seconds; shocking them in ice water; drying them; and chopping them fine. Then I cooked a mixture of pureed raspberries and sugar until it reached 238 degrees; added liquid pectin and boiled it for a minute; stirred in lemon juice and the chopped mint; poured the mixture into a parchment-lined pan, and sprinkled sanding sugar on top. I let the jellies set at room temperature for a few hours before slicing them into squares and coating all of the exposed surfaces in more sanding sugar.

My homemade fruit jellies were nicely set but not as chewy as the commercial version. I loved the crunch of the sugar coating. They had a very concentrated raspberry flavor, although you could definitely tell that the flavor was of cooked raspberry, not raw raspberry. Also, I couldn't taste the mint at all. I could see it, however -- when I added the chopped mint to the hot raspberry mixture, the mint turned into unattractive black specks that were visible in the finished product if you looked closely.  

 

While I enjoyed these candies quite a bit, they didn't blow me away. However, I definitely consider them a success and I would like to try making them in other flavors. My friend's 11-year son FaceTimed me to rave about how much he loved them, saying that they almost got him in trouble for a near profanity when he described them as so effin' good. I take that as the ultimate compliment!

 

Recipe: "Raspberry-Mint Pâtes de Fruits" from Flavorful by Tish Boyle.