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Dessert

Dried Cherries

A preserved fruit made by boiling cherries with sugar, then drying them.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Dried Cherries

Ingredients

Directions

Soak in syrup

  1. Weigh the stoned cherries and add half the weight in sugar.

  2. Boil the cherries and sugar very softly for 10 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a large bowl or pan and let it sit in the syrup for 2 days.

  4. Simmer the cherries again for 10 minutes and let them sit in the syrup for 2 to 3 days.

Dry and store

  1. Drain the cherries slightly and dry them very slowly.

  2. Store the dried cherries in jars or tin canisters.

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

Stoned cherries
Provide the fruit that concentrates in flavour as its water is drawn out.
Sugar
Draws water out of the fruit and sweetens it, helping it keep during long soaking.

The step that matters

Dry the cherries very slowly. Slow, gentle drying lets moisture leave the fruit evenly. Too much heat hardens the outside or scorches the sugar before the centre dries, which spoils texture and flavour.

“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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