Samara beauty creates sweets loved across the country

Everything related to agriculture has always been close to Yulia Smolyakova: her father and grandfather, both farmers, instilled in her from childhood a love for all things natural and handmade. When she herself became a mother, she decided that her son needed natural and healthy sweets containing no sugar and not harmful to the health of her loved ones.

So, Yulia tried making pastila (fruit leather) from homegrown berries and inspired her father to mass-produce the healthy treats:

— I myself have a sweet tooth, but I adhere to a healthy lifestyle and proper nutrition, so I decided to try drying strawberry slices, which my son Ivan loved, and then started making pastila from all the berries and fruits available in my parents« garden. That»s how I realized there«s nothing better than treats created by nature: from berries and fruits grown in the village. This is all ours, beloved and native.

Later I suggested my dad launch mass production because people I treated to our sweets started asking where they could buy them. In June 2018, the first batch of strawberries was dried, and by September, »Our Sweets« appeared in one of the city»s coffee shops.

All my loved ones supported this idea: the most popular product became pastila with a «melon-banana-nuts» flavor, so one grandmother started freezing melon for the next year right away, and another — dried it in the village. That«s how our manufactory was born and slowly began to develop.

Yulia believes the passion for agriculture in the Smolyakov family dynasty is embedded at a genetic level:

— My grandfather and dad are farmers, so my childhood is closely tied to crop farming. When I was little, I constantly rode around the fields with my dad, helping him after returning from school.

I remember riding a combine harvester, and the men working in the crew would give me herbal tea and feed me «shulyumka» (a hearty soup made over an open fire). These memories still give me goosebumps. Even today, when I come during the sowing or harvesting season and ride with my dad through the fields, I am overcome with rapturous emotions.

It turns out there are many nuances in making pastila regarding the choice of fruits and berries. They must be of a certain variety, tasty, and ripe. One unsuitable berry, and the pastila won«t turn out.

Selected fruits go through several preparation stages: first, they are washed and cleaned. Apples, which are used as a base in some pastila flavors, are baked. As a result of this heat treatment, they produce pectin — a natural plant substance that provides the right consistency for the pastila.

— We don»t use ready-made industrial puree; we bake all the apples ourselves. This is our main difference from industrial production. And if you compare our product with pastila produced on an industrial scale, there«s a big difference.

— The tasty mixture is poured onto a special tray where it dries for 8–12 hours depending on the flavor, humidity, and many other nuances. Careful drying preserves up to 95% of the vitamins contained in the fruit.

We preserve for winter berries and fruits grown by farmers in the Samara region on organic, clean lands. In the spring, we plan to plant an apple orchard because our own trees are no longer enough. Perhaps we will plant currants, strawberries, and apricot trees.

Besides pastila, the Smolyakov dynasty produces other sweets:

— We dry strawberries, apples, apricots, and fruit slices, also make sugar-free chocolate with Jerusalem artichoke syrup, activated nuts, and nuts soaked and dried in dehydrators, which are healthier.

I love cooking very much, I enjoy coming up with various combinations, so I am studying to become a food technologist. Next year I plan to write my diploma, which will most likely be dedicated to a plant-based product.

Yulia also spoke about future plans:

— We are happy that we now represent the Samara region at exhibitions like «Taste of Russia» in Moscow at VDNKh, we are a tourist souvenir of the Samara region, and we make large corporate gifts for major companies. So, our plans, of course, are to scale up, develop, plant the orchard, and next to it build our own production facility that can be visited for tea parties. I call it the «Our Sweets» house-museum.

I want future generations to preserve the connection with the manufactory and our family values, which include gatherings around the table. We are what we eat, and our sweets are for the benefit of each family member«s good health!