Candied Pumpkin


I had a lovely harvest of pumpkins this year and I didn't want them going to waste. I wanted a recipe to use for storing the glut. 

This lead me to the idea of candied pumpkin. With nothing to lose, I experimented and was blown away by the result. Everyone who tries these candied gems invariably requests a second helping.

Ingredients:

- Peeled pumpkin - 1kg

- Demerara sugar - 500g

- Cold water

- Cloves - 15 buds

- Ground cinnamon - 1 tbs

- Lemon juice - from 1 lemon

- Icing sugar - 10g

Instructions

Cut the peeled pumpkins into cubes about the size of large gaming dice. 

Put the cubes in a large pot and add cold water until they are just covered. 

Add the demerara sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, and cloves to the pot and stir all the ingredients together.

Heat the pot to boiling, while stirring occasionally and gently. You want the pumpkin cubes to stay intacted.

Turn down the heat to a low simmer. Leave the lid off your pot. Keep the mixture simmering until the liquid evaporates down to a thin, not thick, syrup.

Turn off the heat and leave the pumpkin cubes to cool in the syrup overnight. 

The next day, pre-heat the oven to 100 degrees Celsius and cover two baking racks with sheets of baking paper.

Strain the pumpkin cubes from the syrup and place them on the baking sheets. Try to ensure the cubes are spaced to maximise airflow around them.

Bake the cubes in the oven set to 100 degrees Celsius for several hours, until they are dehydrated. They darken in colour as they dry.

Remove the baking sheets from the oven and let the candied pumpkin pieces cool.

Put the icing sugar in a large bowl. Then, add the candied pumpkin to the bowl too and toss them in the icing sugar until each is fully coated. This process ensures the pumpkin pieces don't stick to each other.

Store the candied pumpkin in a sealed container such as a jam jar. They will last for months this way.

Enjoy!



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