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Dessert

To Dry Cherries, with Sugar

A method for drying cherries by simmering them with sugar and then drying them on a hearth or in a cool oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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To Dry Cherries, with Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the cherries

  1. Place the stoned cherries in a preserving pan.

  2. Strew the pounded sugar among the cherries.

  3. Simmer until the cherries begin to shrivel.

  4. Strain the cherries from the juice.

Dry the cherries

  1. Lay the cherries on a hot hearth or in a cool oven to dry without baking.

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

Kentish cherries
Provide the main fruit, flavour and the chewy body that remains after drying.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and draws water out of the fruit, helping it keep and dry.

The step that matters

Simmer until the cherries begin to shrivel. Sugar draws water out of the fruit and thickens the juice as it cooks. Stopping at the first sign of shrivelling keeps the cherries whole and tender. Cooking longer can toughen the skins and make the fruit hard or sticky.

“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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