Pastila is a traditional oriental sweet that came to us from Turkey.
For the first time, they started to cook this delicacy there, using vegetables, fruits or berries as the main ingredient.
Pumpkin pastille at home - the basic principles of preparation
First you need prepare the main product - pumpkin. To do this, cut the peel with a sharp knife, clean the seeds with fibers. The pulp of the vegetable is cut into small slices and stewed in a thick-walled pan, pouring a little water, or baked in the oven. Then the cooked vegetable is mashed with a submersible blender, trying to make the mass homogeneous, without small pieces.
In received pumpkin puree add sugar, honey or sweetener, spices. Mixed.
The baking sheet or sections of the dryer are covered with parchment and greased with olive oil. Pumpkin mass spread in an even layerwhose height should not exceed two centimeters. Prepared for six hours at 50 C, opening the oven door.
You can dry the pastille at room temperature, this will take at least a day.
Citrus juice or other fruits, such as apples, can be added to the pastille.
Especially tender pastille is obtained if beaten egg whites are added to the mass.
Recipe 1. Pumpkin pastille
Ingredients
cinnamon;
two kilograms of pumpkin;
ginger;
two red sweet apples;
50 g of sugar;
300 g of honey;
50 ml olive oil.
Cooking method
1. The first step is to make mashed pumpkin and apples. Rinse vegetables and fruits under the tap and cut off the peel with a sharp knife. Remove seeds, septa and fibers. Cut the pulp of pumpkin and apples into small pieces.
2. Put everything in a saucepan, pour a little drinking water and simmer over low heat until vegetables and fruits are soft. Using a dip blender or pusher, mash the contents of the saucepan. It is important that the mass is homogeneous and without lumps.
3. Add honey, cinnamon, ginger, sugar, and honey to the pumpkin puree. Shuffle.
4. Cover the baking sheet with parchment and grease it with olive oil. Put the pumpkin-apple mass on a baking sheet so that the height of the layer does not exceed two centimeters.
5. Put the pastille in the oven and dry for six hours at 50 ° C, slightly opening the door. Press your finger on the pastille, if it is soft and elastic, the treat can be removed from the oven.
Recipe 2. Pumpkin pastille at home with an orange in the dryer
Ingredients
orange;
600 g of pumpkin.
Cooking method
1. Cut the peel from the pumpkin, remove the seeds and fibers. Grind the pulp of the vegetable in arbitrary small pieces. Pour a couple of glasses of boiling water into the capacity of the multicooker. Put pieces of pumpkin in a special container for steaming and place it in the appliance. Close the lid and cook for ten minutes.
2. Wash the orange thoroughly and place it in a bowl with boiling water. Leave on for a couple of minutes. This is done in order to get rid of the wax, which is processed citrus. Take out the orange, wipe dry and roll on the table, pressing with your palm. Using the smallest grater, remove the zest from it, trying not to touch the white layer, since it is bitter, which means that the taste of the pastille can be spoiled. Cut the orange in half and squeeze the juice out of it using a special device. Strain it.
3. Transfer the soft pulp of the pumpkin to a deep bowl and grind it to a puree condition with an immersion blender or a pusher. Try to get a homogeneous mass without a single lump. Pour the orange juice into the resulting mass and add the zest. Shuffle.
4. Cut mugs from baking paper to the diameters of the drier trays. Put on them a thin layer of pumpkin puree. The layer height should be no more than 5 mm. Place the pallets in the stand and place it in the dryer. Dry the pastille for six hours.
5. Remove the finished pastille from the appliance, turn it upside down with paper, moisten it with water and leave it to soak for five minutes. Remove the paper. Cut the pastille into strips and roll it into a roll. Store the marshmallow in a tightly closed glass container.
Recipe 3. Pumpkin pastille in the oven
Ingredients
powdered sugar;
a pound of pumpkin;
10 g ground cinnamon;
10 g of ginger.
Cooking method
1. Cut the peel from the pulp of a pumpkin with a sharp knife. Take out the seeds with fiber. Grind the pulp of the vegetable in small pieces, put it in a pan, pour in quite a bit of water, so as not to burn. Boil until soft over moderate heat.
2. Puree a soft pumpkin using a hand blender. Add ginger, cinnamon and powdered sugar to the resulting mass. The amount of the latter depends on the sweetness of the vegetable. If the pumpkin is sweet, you may not add powdered sugar at all.
3. Cover the baking sheet with baking paper and lay in it with an even layer of pumpkin puree. Make sure that the layer height does not exceed two centimeters, otherwise the pastille will have to dry much longer.
4. Put the pastille in the oven for five hours. Dry at 50 ° C with the door ajar. Separate the finished pastille from paper, cut into strips and roll into a roll.
Recipe 4. Pumpkin pastille with yogurt
Ingredients
a pinch of black pepper;
500 g of pumpkin pulp;
ginger;
two jars of 125 g fat-free sweet yogurt;
ground cinnamon.
Cooking method
1. Cut the peel from the pulp of a pumpkin, select seeds with fibers. Cut the vegetable into medium sized pieces. Transfer the chopped pumpkin into a thick-walled pan and pour half a glass of drinking water. Put on moderate heat and cook for ten minutes. This time will be enough to make the pumpkin soft.
2. Puree the vegetable with a submersible blender or pusher until smooth without lumps. Pour yogurt into the mashed potatoes and season with spices. Mix.
3. Cover the baking sheet with cling film. Put the pumpkin mass in it and evenly distribute it on the surface, trying to ensure that the layer height does not exceed half a centimeter. In this case, make the layer in the center thinner than from the edges.
4. Put the baking tray with the pastille in the oven. Set 60 C and open the door. Leave to dry for eight hours. Cut the pastile into strips and roll them into a roll. Store the treat in a tightly closed glass container.
Recipe 5. Pumpkin pastille at home with whipped proteins
Ingredients
lemon;
a pound of pumpkin pulp;
a bag of gelatin;
a pound of granulated sugar;
two egg whites.
Cooking method
1. Cut the peel from the pumpkin and remove the seeds with fiber. Cut the pulp of the vegetable into small slices. Pour two cups of boiling water into the multicooker bowl. Put pumpkin slices in a special steaming device. Put it in the bowl, close the lid. Set the valve to the closed position. Steam the pumpkin until tender.
2. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice out of it using a special device. Strain.
3. Put the soft pumpkin in a deep bowl, pour in the lemon juice, pour in sugar and beat everything to a puree condition with a submersible blender.
4. To beat in the obtained pumpkin puree, cooled egg whites and continue to beat with a mixer until the mass increases in volume.
5. Dissolve the gelatin, following the instructions on the package. Pour it into mashed pumpkin and mix.
6. Cover the baking sheet with parchment, grease it with olive oil and put the pumpkin mass on it. Flatten. Since the edges are dried faster, make them thicker, and in the middle, on the contrary, the layer must be thinner so that the paste is dried evenly.
7. Place the pan in the oven for six hours. Dry at 50 C by opening the oven door. Remove the pastilles from the oven, put on a dry wooden board, sprinkled with powdered sugar, parchment up. Moisten it lightly with water and remove the parchment after five minutes. Sprinkle powder on top and cut into bars.
Recipe 6. Pumpkin pasta at home with walnuts
Ingredients
one and a half glasses of walnuts;
one and a half kilograms of pumpkin;
75 g of honey;
a glass of granulated sugar;
two lemons.
Cooking method
1. Peel the pumpkin with a sharp knife from the peel, select the seeds and fibers. Grind the pulp of the vegetable in medium slices. Place the chopped pumpkin in a saucepan.
2. Wash the lemons, wipe with a napkin, remove the zest from them, cut in half and squeeze the juice using a special device. Strain it and pour into a pan with pumpkin. Pour granulated sugar. Stir and put on a slow fire, pouring half a glass of drinking water.
3. Once the pumpkin is soft, add honey and lemon zest to the pan. Crush the pumpkin or crush it with a hand blender until smooth.
4. Finely chop walnuts or twist in a blender. Add chopped nuts to pumpkin puree and mix.
5. Cover the baking sheet with parchment, grease it with olive oil and lay out the pumpkin-nut mass in an even layer, half a centimeter high. Put the pastille in the oven for 12 hours. Dry at 50 ° C, slightly opening the door. Take out the prepared pastille, free from parchment, cut into strips and twist with a roll. Sprinkle with sugar.
Pumpkin candy at home - tips and tricks
- To make it easier to remove the parchment from the pastille, moisten it with some water and leave it for five minutes.
- It is advisable to spread the pumpkin mass so that its layer is thicker along the edges than in the middle.
- Pumpkin puree should be smooth and uniform so that it does not have a single piece.
- Each piece of marshmallow can be rolled in icing sugar mixed with vanilla.
- The technology for making pumpkin marmalade is very similar to that described above, but has its own characteristics.
