Confiserie Lilamand featured in France 3’s “Fenêtre sur” program

Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, a winter’s morning. The light is soft and the village is slumbering… except on Wednesday, market day, when producers and market gardeners bring the narrow streets back to life with their stalls of local produce. It’s against this Provencal backdrop that the “Fenêtre sur” section has set its camera on a local treasure: the Confiserie Lilamand.

When this video was shot in 2015, the Lilamand family had already been perpetuating the art of candied fruit at Saint-Rémy for over a century. In this video, Pierre Lilamand expresses his passion for this very special craft: taking a freshly picked fruit, sublimating it through successive boiling and cooking, to make an exceptional product worthy of the finest festive tables.

The report guides you through each stage of the artisanal production process. First, blanching, which firms the fruit flesh in a clear water broth. Then there are the syrup baths, repeated over several weeks, during which the fruit’s natural water is gradually replaced by sugar. Finally, the glaze, that fine crystalline film that gives candied fruit its shine and elegance to the touch.

The video also reveals the secrets of making Lilamand calissons. Candied melon, almonds and a few orange peels: an apparently simple Provençal recipe, but one that relies on a subtle balance of raw materials. Here, Pierre Lilamand describes the unique osmosis between crushed almonds and candied melon, which gives calissons their incomparable softness.

Candied fruit and calissons are best enjoyed with the eyes. This video proves it.

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