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Dessert

Fruit Tablets

A candy made by boiling sugar and fruit pulp to a feather stage and molding into tablets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Fruit Tablets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sugar

  1. Clarify the sugar.

  2. Boil the sugar to the 'Feather' stage.

Add the fruit and boil again

  1. Add the fruit pulp to the hot sugar.

  2. Boil again to the 'Feather' stage.

Stir and set

  1. Remove from heat and stir well against the sides of the pan for 5 minutes until glossy.

  2. Pour the syrup into a shallow mold made of folded cartridge paper.

  3. Use a knife to score the syrup into lengths for breaking when cold.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Double-refined sugar
Forms the sugar mass that sets firm and gives the tablets their sweetness and body.
Fruit pulp
Adds fruit flavour and moisture to the sugar syrup.

The step that matters

Boil again to the 'Feather' stage. The sugar concentration determines how the mass sets. Boiling to the feather stage, the point where a drop of syrup forms a thread that falls in fine feathery strands, must be reached again after the fruit is added. Under-boiling leaves the tablets soft and sticky, while over-boiling makes them hard and brittle.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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