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Candied Cherries

Candied cherries are sweetened and preserved by repeated boiling of syrup and soaking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Candied Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cherries

  1. Bleach the cherries overnight in sulphur fumes or for 5 hours if in a thin layer.

  2. Pit and blanch the cherries, then soak them in cold running water for 15 minutes to 1 hour.

  3. Dry the cherries in willow baskets or on hurdles.

Syrup and soak

  1. Place the cherries in earthenware jars and pour hot boiling syrup over them.

  2. Let them sit for 1 hour, then drain the syrup.

  3. Boil the syrup to 24° Beaume and pour it over the cherries.

  4. Leave for 24 hours, drain the syrup, add sugar, and boil to 25° before pouring over the cherries.

  5. Repeat this process every second day for a total of 3 times, increasing the syrup strength to 27° on the last round.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Bigarreaux cherries
Provide the fruit that is preserved and candied, holding its shape through repeated soaking.
Sugar
Added to the syrup in stages to raise its concentration, preserving the fruit and giving sweetness.
Sulphite of soda
Bleaches the cherries, lightening their colour before the syrup soaking begins.

The step that matters

Raising the syrup strength gradually. Sugar must penetrate the fruit slowly. Pouring syrup that is too strong too early can draw moisture out and toughen or shrivel the cherries, while building concentration over several soakings lets sugar replace the water inside gradually.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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