Homemade Pâtes de Fruits (no corn syrup)

These homemade orange and pomegranate pâtes de fruits are the perfect balance of tart and sweet, with a chewy texture and crunchy sugar coating. This classy candy looks as great as it tastes and makes for an impressive edible gift!

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• What You'll Need to Make This Recipe
• How to Make This Recipe
• Lexi's Best Tips and Tricks
• Frequently Asked Questions
• More homemade candy recipes to try
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Reviews

These pomegranate and orange pâtes de fruits sound fancy, but they're really just delicious fruit jellies. Unlike gummy bears or gummy worms, they use pectin instead of gelatin.

Pectin is a natural fiber found in plants, and it acts as a powerful gelling and thickening agent. It comes in a powdered form, and is commonly used to thicken jams and jellies.

Pâte de fruit is a recipe that's been around for hundreds of years, but most recipes you'll see online call for corn syrup.

Our pâtes de fruits simply start with freshly-squeezed (optional, of course) fruit juice for a delicious fruity flavor. The juice is then boiled with granulated sugar and pectin. Right at the end, a splash of lemon juice is added, which helps to activate the pectin's gelling properties.

After letting the mix set up for a while, they're cut into squares and rolled into sugar. Put them in a box and give them as an edible holiday gift!

This recipe is part of our 2025 Recipe Advent Calendar. If you love homemade food gifts, try our Cranberry Pomegranate Caramels or Homemade Ferrero Rocher next!

What You'll Need to Make This Recipe

• Fruit juice or fruit puree: We used freshly-squeezed fruit juices in ours, but you could also use a well-strained homemade fruit purée. We used pomegranate and orange, but nearly any fruit will do, and popular choices include pear, raspberry, apricot, cherry and passion fruit. If you want to see how we juice a pomegranate efficiently, check out our Homemade Grenadine (Pomegranate Syrup) post.
• Pectin: Pectin comes in a few varieties, and the choice of product matters. There's classic (high methoxyl or HM) pectin, which is what we want to use in this recipe, and low or no sugar needed (low methoxyl or LM) pectin, which is what we don't want to use. Specifically, we used the Ball brand Realfruit pectin.
• Sugar and acid: Classic pectin requires sugar and an acid to gel, so we add a healthy amount of sugar and a splash of lemon juice at the end.

How to Make This Recipe

STEP 1: If you're using freshly-squeezed juice, squeeze and strain your fruit juice. To a heavy-bottomed saucepan about 9 inches (4- or 5-qt) in diameter with a candy thermometer attached to the side, add the fruit juice and bring to a simmer.

STEP 2: In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar and pectin, then slowly pour the mixture of sugar and pectin into the simmering fruit juice, whisking as you go to prevent clumping or sticking to the bottom of the pan.

STEP 3: Continue cooking over medium high heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture comes to a boil. Keep cooking until it reaches 223˚F. It will take 15-20 minutes or longer to get to the target temperature.

STEP 4: Turn off the heat, then add in the lemon juice, stir, and quickly pour into a roughly 8x8-inch (20x20-cm) parchment paper-lined dish.

STEP 5: Allow the pâte de fruit to sit at room temperature for 24-36 hours. A long period of sitting and drying out will help prevent weeping (moisture coming out) after they are rolled in sugar.

STEP 6: Spray a knife with cooking spray or lightly coat with oil and cut the pâte de fruit block into squares that are roughly 1.5-inches x 1 .5-inches. Add about half cup of sugar to a plate and place each square into the sugar, flipping it over and coating all sides.

Lexi's Best Tips and Tricks

• Temperature is key: Pectin needs to reach about 217˚F-222˚F to gel, and we like to take ours slightly past the upper end of that range to be safe, and hold it there for a few seconds. If you don't get it to this temperature, your pâtes de fruits will not gel correctly. This is all to say that you will need a candy thermometer. We use this thermometer.
• Let them cure: You can enjoy these right away, but if you want to coat them in sugar without having moisture seep out, you'll need to let these cure at room temperature at least overnight, but ideally 24 to 36 hours.
• Coating in sugar: We like the slight granular crunch of the sugar, but it's not completely necessary to coat them. If you are coating them, and you wand an even crunchier bite, use an organic or coarse sugar with even larger grains.
• Pectin: We used powdered original / classic pectin and not low or no sugar added pectin. We haven't tried using liquid pectin, but you can substitute 4 tablespoons of powdered pectin for 6 ounces of liquid pectin. You'll need to add the liquid pectin in after the sugar has reached the right temperature, unlike the powdered pectin, which goes in before.
• Sour: If you want to turn these confections into a sour treat, mix a little food grade citric acid into the sugar you use to coat your pâtes de fruits.
• Storage: You'll want to place these in an airtight container, where they will keep for up to 2 weeks.

Frequently Asked Questions

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