Lemon pate de fruit not setting....ideas?

[julie99nl]

I'm working on a double bonbon with a lemon pate de fruit//jelly in the top of the dome and a ganache underneath.

I made my lemon jelly last night, but it is not setting at all. Or minimally, so I came here to see if maybe someone had posted a recipe or something that I could refer to.

 

I found a post by grfon1 from 2015 with this recipe:

 

On 3/19/2015 at 4:23 AM, gfron1 said:

160 g Various purees (I used apricot, meyer lemon and passionfruit)

35 g Water

13 g Sugar

3 g Pectin NH

50 g Sugar

 

 

This is pretty much the recipe I use and have used for other molded gels in the past with raspberry, lychee, apricot all with no problem. As it had not gelled at all overnight, I heated it up again and added another 2 g Pectin NH and so far, not much improvement.

My recipe is

185 g  liquid

55 sugar split

3 g Pectin NH

So, more pectin to liquids and sugar which you'd think would make for a firmer gel.

 

Any ideas?

 

 

[keychris]

did the pectin fully dissolve? the only time I've had an issue with pdf is when I didn't disperse the pectin in the sugar properly before adding it to the puree and it (the pectin) went clumpy and stuck to the sides of the pan

[julie99nl]

It definitely had dissolved because I made that error in pastry school and will never in my life do it again. 😂
I think it must have been a weighing issue. weighing such a small amount and late at night I must have made an error..
The reheat this morning worked.
 

 

[Merry Berry]

On page one of this thread 

 Michael Laiskonis (whose advice I have utilized before on the subject of pate de fruit) says when using something either low in natural pectin or high in acid that you have to strengthen it with fruit purees higher in pectin or use more pectin itself.  I know in most recipes the use of an acid at the end is used to delay the gelling of the pectin which I imagine happened here.  Too much of the acidic lemon juice kept the low amount of pectin from doing its job.  

 

Glad it worked out for you finally.  How did your bonbons come out?  They sound delicious. 

[julie99nl]

Thank you for the reply. Talking to my mentor shortly afterwards he reminded me of my confiserie class where we discussed differing fruit acidities and pectin. I guess I wasn't awake that day. 😂
Still working on the bonbon. The blueberry ganache was amazing! I need to play with the ratios a little of gel to ganache when I get back from vacation.

[Jim D.]

I don't believe you have mentioned the blueberry ganache, at least in this thread. Is it the ganache you mentioned paired with the lemon PdF? I have been working on getting real blueberry flavor in a filling for some time but without success. The blueberry flavor gets lost in everything else (white chocolate, for example). Can you elaborate on how you make it?  I tried fresh blueberries directly from the farmers' market, but they were bland. Maybe purchased blueberry purée has a better flavor?

Edited February 27, 2019 by Jim D. (log)

[Tri2Cook]

9 hours ago, Jim D. said:

I don't believe you have mentioned the blueberry ganache, at least in this thread. Is it the ganache you mentioned paired with the lemon PdF? I have been working on getting real blueberry flavor in a filling for some time but without success. The blueberry flavor gets lost in everything else (white chocolate, for example). Can you elaborate on how you make it?  I tried fresh blueberries directly from the farmers' market, but they were bland. Maybe purchased blueberry purée is has a better flavor?

That's a tough one. I still wouldn't call it blueberry perfection but I'm basically doing it like a water ganache. I'm just using puree (made from local wild blueberries and sugar), glucose, white chocolate and a touch of citric acid. There's a blueberry liqueur available here that I thought about working into the ganache but it's pretty pricey for a small bottle. Maybe if I try my hand at making my own blueberry liqueur someday, I'll give that a shot. I've also toyed with the idea of adding freeze dried blueberry powder but that stuff's really expensive so it may never happen.

[Jim D.]

24 minutes ago, Tri2Cook said:

That's a tough one. I still wouldn't call it blueberry perfection but I'm basically doing it like a water ganache. I'm just using puree (made from local wild blueberries and sugar), glucose, white chocolate and a touch of citric acid. There's a blueberry liqueur available here that I thought about working into the ganache but it's pretty pricey for a small bottle. Maybe if I try my hand at making my own blueberry liqueur someday, I'll give that a shot. I've also toyed with the idea of adding freeze dried blueberry powder but that stuff's really expensive so it may never happen.

Thanks for those ideas. I hadn't considered freeze-dried powder, but it's a good possibility. I did get some "blueberry essence" from the same place that sold some wonderful French apple, apricot, and pear essences, but the blueberry wasn't of the same quality.

[ChocoMom]

Re: blueberry ganache. I did this a couple times, pre-fire, and lost the formula I had worked on.  I recall using milk chocolate ( I know, weird...but it worked well), blueberry powder, and essentially, blueberry "jam" strained through mesh. If memory serves me, I may have popped in a bit of blueberry schnapps, and a few grains of tartaric or citric acid.  The blueberry powder is indeed a little pricey. 4 oz of the organic blueberry powder on Nuts.com runs $20.99.  There must've been a price increase, because I don't think I paid that much before. Having said that, a little of the powder goes a LONG way.   

 

Have not tried doing a lemon PdF, so I can't offer much help there. I have done other PdF's using Agar - which were very successful, so perhaps trying another gelling agent might yield a different result? 

[julie99nl]

Jim, my starting point was my basic white chocolate ganache with fruit puree recipe for molded bonbons. I use this same ratio for mango and passion fruit combinewd and a guava. Having been raised in the tropics, my palate favors tropical fruits...

I use boiron purees, so I got a decent flavor, but the combo needs work and could use something extra...maybe honey or a little bit of lavender or something crunchy.

 

 

100 gr fruit puree (blueberry in this case)

18 gr invert sugar

222 white chocolate

13 butter

 

[pastrygirl]

3 hours ago, ChocoMom said:

 

Have not tried doing a lemon PdF, so I can't offer much help there. I have done other PdF's using Agar - which were very successful, so perhaps trying another gelling agent might yield a different result? 

 

Agar, like pectin and gelatin, is also inhibited from setting by high acid.

[pavonia]

I know this is very old, but for anyone who uses the forums like I do for research purposes - I just wanted to correct some of the misinformation above (no offense intended).

 

Pectin is pH dependent, as mentioned above, but the high acid (low pH) is what sets the gel. Depending on the type of pectin used, pH range is around 3.2-3.5. Not setting? Try increasing your acid (or your pectin, or your solids, or some combination thereof).