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To Dry Cherries

A method for drying cherries by boiling them in clarified sugar syrup and air-drying.

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

To Dry Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Candy the cherries

  1. Boil 1½ cups of clarified sugar with water to make a syrup.

  2. Add the cherries and boil again, then set aside in an earthen pan overnight.

  3. Strain the syrup, add more sugar, and boil to a proper consistency.

  4. Add the cherries, boil for 5 minutes, and set aside for another day.

  5. Repeat this process for two more days.

Dry

  1. Lay the cherries on wires to dry in a nearly cold oven.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Cherries
The fruit itself; it absorbs the syrup and becomes the dried, chewy product.
Clarified sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, in concentrated syrup, draws out water so the cherries keep.

The step that matters

Re-boiling the syrup each day. Sugar concentration preserves the fruit. Each day the syrup must be strained, enriched with sugar and boiled to the right consistency before the cherries return. If it stays too thin, water remains in the cherries and they may spoil rather than dry.

“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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