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Fruit and Gelatine Candies: Paste
Apricot Paste 1 can apricots Sugar Drain syrup from a can of apricots, and rub fruit through a sieve. Measure syrup, and add three fourths as much sugar, put in saucepan, and boil to 254 degree F., or until syrup cracks when tried in cold water, being careful that it does not burn. Add apricot pulp, and boil, stirring gently to prevent burning, until mixture is so thick that it follows the spoon in stirring, and detaches itself from the saucepan. Pour into a buttered pan, spread in a layer one eighth of an inch thick, and when stiff remove from pan, cut in fancy shapes with small tin cutters, and sprinkle with coarse sugar, or crystallize according to directions.
Instead of pouring into buttered pan, paste may be dropped on waxed paper in rounds one and one half inches in diameter. These may be dipped in melted chocolate or melted fondant if desired.
A straightforward fruit paste in the pâte de fruits tradition, though the original assumes a canned fruit and a can size that no longer describe what is on the shelf. Read the sugar quantities as proportional rather than fixed.
- What "1 can" meantEarly twentieth-century recipes of this type generally assume a No. 2 can, roughly 1 lb 4 oz, giving about a cup of syrup and 1½ cups of drained fruit. A modern 15-oz can is close enough; the ratio the recipe actually gives -- three parts sugar to every four parts syrup -- is what matters.
- Modern canned apricotsFruit packed in juice or light syrup carries far less sugar than the heavy pack of the period, so the finished paste will be softer and take longer to reduce. Halves packed in heavy syrup behave most like the original; if you use juice-packed fruit, expect to boil the pulp stage noticeably longer.
- The temperature and the cold-water test disagree254°F is firm-to-hard ball, not the crack stage — syrup does not crack in cold water until about 270°F and above. Trust the thermometer at 254°F; taking it to a genuine crack will make the sugar too hard to combine smoothly with the pulp.
- The hinge: the second boilEverything depends on cooking the pulp and syrup down until the mass truly pulls away from the pan and holds a furrow behind the spoon. Stop short of that and the paste never firms enough to cut; the layer will stay tacky no matter how long it sits.
- SievingA food mill or a blitz in a processor followed by a push through a fine sieve gives the smooth pulp intended here. Skins left in will show as flecks and interrupt the clean cut.
- Stirring and scorchingUse a heavy-bottomed pan and a flat-edged wooden spatula, and keep the heat moderate once the pulp goes in. Fruit sugars catch quickly at this concentration, and scorched apricot tastes of nothing else.
- Setting timeAn eighth-inch layer needs several hours at room temperature, and overnight is safer. Do not refrigerate to speed it — the surface draws moisture and the sugar coating dissolves.
- Crystallizing and coating"Crystallize according to directions" means dipping the cut shapes in a saturated sugar syrup and letting a fine crust form; coarse sanding sugar rolled on the still-tacky surface is the simpler route. Chocolate-dipped pieces should be fully surface-dry first or the coating will slip.
- Yield and keepingA 15-oz can yields a tray of small cut shapes; the count depends entirely on how far the paste reduces and on the size of the cutter. Layered between waxed paper in a tin, they keep two to three weeks; they stiffen and darken with time rather than spoiling.
Fruit pastes of this kind are the industrial-canning descendant of a much older confection — the stiff boiled fruit cheeses and marmalades of medieval and early modern Europe, of which Spanish quince membrillo and French pâte de fruits are the surviving forms. Traditionally these were made in high summer from fresh fruit at glut prices and were as much a preserving method as a sweet. What is distinctly of its period here is the opening line: a can of apricots, available year-round from California packers by the 1910s, and treated as an ordinary pantry staple rather than a luxury. The recipe itself suggests home cooks making gifts and holiday boxes, and the instruction to cut in fancy shapes with small tin cutters, sand with coarse sugar, or dip in chocolate points straight at that use — a homemade equivalent of the boxed jellies then sold by confectioners.