Dried Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the stems and pits from the cherries using a quill.
Make the syrup and candy the cherries
Boil the sugar until it reaches the bloom stage.
Add the cherries to the boiling syrup and boil for a moment.
Set the mixture aside in an earthen pot until the next day.
Strain the syrup, add more sugar, and boil until thick.
Add the cherries back in and boil for 5 minutes.
Set aside for another day, repeating the boiling process for two more days.
Dry and finish
When ready, drain the cherries and lay them on wire sieves to dry in a stove or a nearly cold oven.
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
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit that shrinks, firms and becomes chewy as its water is drawn out.
- Sugar
- Draws water out of the fruit and sweetens it, helping it keep as it dries.
The step that matters
Repeated boiling and resting in syrup. Sugar must replace the water in the cherries gradually. Boiling too hard or too fast can shrink the skins and toughen the fruit, and overly thick syrup can crystallize. Resting between boils lets the sugar penetrate evenly.
“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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