Dried fruit and fruit juice powder

[tralfaz]

Anyone have experience using these as a flavoring for pastry or candy making?  Are the flavors true, are they easy to work with?  Any suggestions or comments?

[Jim D.]

Some on this forum praise dried fruit powders, but I have not been pleased with any I have purchased.  Even if they are full-flavored when I open them (strawberry comes to mind), the flavor tends to fade rather quickly.  I found a tasty raspberry powder once, but quickly realized that it wasn't seedless and so would not be satisfactory in a raspberry filling for a chocolate.

 

Dried fruit is another matter, and I use it frequently.  I just made a fig with anise and port filling for a chocolate and used dried California black figs that were delicious.  I have been happy with most of the dried fruit I have gotten from nuts.com (the new half-dried apricots, for example, as well as pears and apples--not the blueberries, which tasted like raisins).  For lowering free water content of a ganache or pâte de fruit, dried fruit really comes in handy, since much of the water has already been removed.

[tralfaz]

5 hours ago, Jim D. said:

Dried fruit is another matter, and I use it frequently.

I tried using fresh, juice and dried mango for a ganache and the dried definitely turned out the best.  I'm just looking for a short cut.  I wonder if freezing the powder would extend the quality.  On the other hand, I already know what works.

[Jim D.]

19 minutes ago, tralfaz said:

I tried using fresh, juice and dried mango for a ganache and the dried definitely turned out the best.  I'm just looking for a short cut.  I wonder if freezing the powder would extend the quality.  On the other hand, I already know what works.

 

Not to get too far off your topic, but in the case of mango, I made a PdF using mango purée plus dried mango, and it was quite flavorful.  I paired it in a bonbon with a second layer of mango ganache, to which I added a French mango extract that added a bit of punch that, when covered in chocolate, mango needs to be assertive enough.

 

You are undoubtedly correct that freezing fruit powder would help it last better.