To Dry Cherries the Best Way
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Combine the cherries and a small amount of water in a preserving pan.
Heat the mixture until scalding hot.
Remove the cherries from the pan.
Dry the cherries.
Layer the cherries back in the pan.
Sprinkle sugar between each layer of cherries.
Let the cherries sit to melt the sugar.
Heat the pan again until scalding hot.
Remove the cherries from the pan.
Repeat the heating and removal process two more times.
Dry and store
Drain the cherries from the syrup.
Lay the cherries out to dry on dishes in the sun or on a stove.
Dip the cherries in cold water using a sieve.
Place the cherries on a soft cloth to dry.
Set the cherries back in the sun or on the stove to dry completely.
Store the dried cherries in a box with layers of white paper in a dry place.
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
- Stoned cherries
- Provide the fruit that is dried into a chewy, concentrated product.
- Double-refined sugar
- Draws moisture out of the fruit and sweetens it as it is absorbed into the cherries.
The step that matters
Heating the cherries until scalding hot, repeated between sugar layers. Sugar draws water out of the fruit and must be fully dissolved into the cherries. Repeated heating helps the sugar penetrate and concentrates the syrup, so the cherries dry evenly instead of staying wet or crystallising unevenly.
“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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