Pumpkin candies made from pumpkin pickles or chips

Several past posts have dealt with pumpkin chip recipes from 1770 and 1840 and how to cut pumpkins into chips HERE.  Chips or sweet pickles can be made into candies by rolling them in sugar.

Pumpkin chips in syrup (bottom) are dried (middle) and then finally rolled in sugar (top).  In the past I have used regular sugar but this time I pressed some of them into superfine sugar and others in pounded sugar - powdered, but not 10x or confectioners which has cornstarch.

Be sure to either drain the syrup off on cake racks or press the pumpkin chips between paper towels and dry on rack for several hours.  If not dry enough, when rolled in sugar more liquid form.  This recipe uses honey (no surprise in a bee magazine) but other pumpkin chips - made with lemon juice, juice from lemons, vinegar - can also be covered with sugar.  These delicious sugared candies are worth the time to make. 

The recipe is from Gleanings in Bee Culture, Dec. 1921:

Gold Nuggets

1 lb. peeled and sliced pumpkin  

2 tablespoons honey

¼ lemon sliced

¾  lb. granulated sugar

1 oz. ginger root (dried)

Cover the pumpkin with the sugar and let stand over night. Drain from the syrup which will form and boil the syrup down until it is thick enough to coat a spoon. Add the pumpkin, the honey, lemon, and ginger and simmer until the pumpkin is clear and most of the syrup has been absorbed. Do not cook too long, as the product will darken and a caramel flavor develop. Drain and dry the pumpkin on a plate several hours and then roll in granulated sugar. Cinnamon bark may be substituted for the ginger root.

 ©2014 Patricia Bixler Reber
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