Dulces De Calabasas (Mexico)

This is the second time I've made this recipe and really wanted to like it. It seems like the perfect candy - a little chunk of sweet pumpkin. A candy that Mexicans have been making and eating for centuries. But this recipe calls for boiling chunks of pumpkin 30 to 35 minutes and they can't take that and still hold up. Then you dry them for 12 hours at room temperature, I dried mine for two days and this picture is the only time they looked like this. They're just soggy little lumps. There just has to be more to making these candies than this. Also apparently these traditionally don't have the spices and the cloves are overpowering.