Dried Cherries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Remove the stalks and stones from the cherries using a quill.
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar with water until it reaches the blown stage.
Add the cherries to the syrup and boil for a few minutes.
Set the mixture aside in an earthen pan until the next day.
Boil and rest
Strain the syrup, add more sugar, and boil until it reaches a good consistency.
Return the cherries to the syrup and boil for five minutes.
Set aside again for another day, then repeat the boiling process two more times.
Dry the cherries
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, which softens and becomes sweet and chewy as it absorbs the syrup.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and, drawn into the cherries, preserves them and limits spoilage.
The step that matters
Repeated boiling and resting in syrup. Each boil followed by a day's rest lets sugar slowly replace the water in the fruit. Boiling too hard or too soon can shrivel the skin or leave the cherries tough and not properly candied.
“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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