Gorgeous Homemade Tamarind Candy Is Only a Few Steps Away

Following a festive chocolate party cake last week, this week's episode of Pastries with Paola also features a celebratory treat—candy. Paola is making her recipe for Tamarind Jelly Candies, combining tamarind pulp with ingredients like fresh lime juice and liquid pectin to create a jiggly, fun sweet. She also includes directions for creating different flavored sugars to coat each jelly candy with, from a sweet-sour mixture of sugar and citric acid to a strawberry sugar made with freeze-dried strawberries. No matter which sugar you choose, you'll end up with a beautiful result.

Read on for Paola's method and follow along with the video above.

First: Make the Candy

For the jelly candy component, you'll need granulated sugar, frozen tamarind pulp (thawed), fresh lime juice, unsalted butter, and liquid pectin—which Paola prefers, but if you can't find it, you can use dried pectin. Stir together the sugar, tamarind pulp, and lime juice in a medium saucepan and cook it over medium heat—once it comes to a boil, continue to let it boil until it reaches 220°F on an instant-read thermometer. This should take about five minutes.

At this point, remove the mixture from the heat and add in the butter, stirring until it melts. Cook the mixture for five more minutes and then remove it from the heat once more to stir in the pectin—this is going to help the candies gel and become firm. Cook for another minute over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture starts to thicken and gel, and reaches 220°F. Then, pour the mixture into the foil-lined eight-inch square baking dish. You'll want to let it cool for at least eight hours, or overnight if you're patient. As Paola says, "good things come to those who wait." Store it in the refrigerator covered until you're ready to serve, and it will keep for up to one week.

Get Your Sugars Ready

To make these candies really sparkle—both figuratively and literally—Paola coats them in homemade flavored sugars. The sugar coating dissolves within an hour, so you'll want to cut and coat your candies right before you're ready to eat. The first one she prepares is a simple mixture of citric acid and granulated sugar, which will add a sweet-sour flavor. For the fruity sugars, she uses freeze-dried strawberries, freeze-dried bananas, and freeze-dried mangoes to create three different varieties. All you have to do is crush each fruit up in a zip-top bag using a rolling pin, and then mix them with granulated sugar.

Cut, Decorate, and Serve

When you're ready to cut and serve the candy, place a sheet of parchment paper on top of the baking dish and invert the tamarind jelly candy onto your work surface, removing the baking dish and aluminum foil but leaving the parchment underneath. How you cut them is up to you, and you can either use a knife, lightly greased with cooking spray or butter, to cut the jelly into even cubes, or use a large round pastry tip to cut one-inch rounds or crescent moons, as Paola demonstrates in the video. Finally, roll each pate de fruit in the sugar of your choice and enjoy.

"It's the best candy I've ever made," Paola says as she tries a mango sugar-covered candy. "It's sweet, and sour. The mango is just so vibrant. The tamarind…I can't stop salivating, it's just so good."

Stay tuned for our next episode of Pastries with Paola featuring Black and Ruby Cookies