Epic Fail: Pâte de Fruit

My first two attempts at pâte de fruit were, as the title suggests, epic failures. In true adventurer fashion, I researched multiple recipes to figure out what the basic forumla was before deciding how to proceed, and this is what I found: 

• 2 c (16 oz) fruit puree or pure fruit juice
• 16 oz sugar, plus more for rolling
• 2 T lemon juice
• 2 1/2 T liquid pectin

The first recipe I tried was with Strawberries and extra lemon juice, sort of a strawberry lemonade if you will. Sadly, the puree didn't strain well at all, but other than some seeds it seemed pretty liquid, so I forged onward (read: I just poured the whole puree in the pot). It went pretty much as expected, other than the scalding of my pot, and it gelled up pretty well. Unfortunately they didn't taste good. At all.

So those got tossed.