Jujubes are a type of jelly candy drop that come in a variety of colors – usually red, green, yellow, pink, and purple. They are an American candy that are usually found in grocery and candy stores – but what if you want to make some from scratch?
If you have a hankering for this sweet treat and you want to know how to make a batch of your own, you’ve come to the right place!
Here is a jujubes recipe along with a brief history of the candy, and why they actually have nothing to do with a fruit of the same name.
What are jujubes?
Jujubes are a candy drop made of gelatin and liquid glucose. While you can find packets of these in grocery stores, jujubes are most commonly found at movie theaters for the perfect movie snack.
Jujubes come in a variety of colors that align with different fruit flavors, including yellow (lemon), green (lime), red (wild cherry), purple (violet), and orange (lilac).
History of jujubes
Confectioners released a recipe for “pate de jujubes” back in 1709 when they began to experiment with jujube fruit – a Chinese fruit. Often called a “red date” or “Chinese date”, jujube fruits were one of the key ingredients to pate de jujubes, along with sugar and gum Arabic.
In the 1800s, the recipe began to develop further as confectioners sold “ju ju paste” and “ju ju drops”. Since then, the recipe has been somewhat perfected into the jujubes jelly-like candy drops that we know now.
Jujubes: Candy vs. fruit
While the original pate de jujubes recipe included jujube fruits in the ingredients, the namesake fruit has since become less involved with the candy we know now.
That’s right – despite its name, jujube candy does not contain anything to do with jujube fruit.
Confectioners found other ways to replicate the flavors of the date-like fruit that didn’t involve shipping the native Chinese fruit all the way to America. Instead, they used artificial methods of creating fruity flavors.
The reason for this isn’t clear, but it is suggested that jujube fruits are no longer used in the candy recipe because the raw fruit can render the gelatin useless.
Jujubes recipe
Ingredients:
- 30 g unflavored gelatin
- Cold water
- 250 g sugar
- 2 tbsp liquid glucose
- Few drops of liquid food coloring of your choice
- Castor sugar
- Few drops of essence of your choice
- 1 small lime
- Olive oil
Step 1:
Measure out the gelatin and add it to a bowl with 5 tablespoons of cold water. Leave it for 10 minutes – during this time, the gelatin will bloom. The water is essential for activating the gelatin.
If you only have gelatin leafs, keep in mind that one tablespoon of powdered gelatin amounts to 4 gelatin leafs.
Step 2:
In a cooking vessel, mix the liquid glucose, sugar, and 125 ml of water. Once combined, add the juice of the lime and the bloomed gelatin to the mixture, and put the vessel over a low heat on a medium burner.
Whatever you do, keep stirring, and don’t let the mixture come to a boil. It will take around 15-20 minutes for the gelatin to melt and for the sugar to dissolve completely.
Step 3:
Add the color and essences of your choice to the mixture. Switch off the heat and mix together. Bear in mind that if you intend to make different colors, you will have to make separate batches for each color.
Pour this mixture out of the vessel and into a bowl, and leave it to cool for 15 minutes.
Step 4:
During this time, you must prepare the baking tray. To do this, take a small amount of olive oil and grease the tray.
Step 5:
You will know when the candy mixture has rested when a layer of whitish scum forms at the top of the mixture. To get rid of this, simply scrape it away with a knife or spoon. This will leave you with a mixture similar to clear uncooked jello.
Once the scum has been scraped off, pour the mixture into the baking tray and leave it to set overnight. It will be fine on the countertop at room temperature.
Step 6:
You will know when the jello-like candy has set when you move the tray around and it doesn’t wobble loosely. At this point, you will need to remove the mixture from the baking tray without breaking it.
The olive oil will have helped to prevent it from sticking to the tray.
Use a knife to cut around the edges of the mixture, and then carefully lift the mixture away from the tray. Place this mixture on a chopping board.
Step 7:
Here’s the fun part! Once the mixture is on your chopping board, you can now cut it into the candy shape you would like. Most people opt for small cubes, but if you’re feeling particularly creative and you want to replicate the original candy drop shape, go for it!
Once the pieces are cut, leave them out to dry for another 8 hours. Then, roll them around in castor sugar, and you’ve got yourself some jujube candy!
Optional step 8:
Keep in mind that this recipe will only count for one color of candy. If you want to make a mix of different colors, you will have to repeat the process with a different food color and flavoring.
Luckily, as this recipe involves a lot of waiting around, you will find that you can make several batches of the candy at the same time.
Serving jujubes
As with all candy, you can eat your homemade jujubes however you like. You can leave them out in the open for people to grab whenever they pass the kitchen, or you can keep them in a container away from the sugar-addict kids.
Jujubes can be eaten by themselves, or in a bowl of ice cream or jello. They could even be sprinkled on top of cereal for a sweet treat!
