To Dry Cherries the Best Way
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Place the cherries in a preserving pan with a little water and heat until scalding hot.
Remove the cherries and dry them.
Candy with sugar
Layer the cherries in the pan, sprinkling sugar between each layer.
Let the mixture sit to melt the sugar.
Heat the pan until scalding hot again.
Repeat this process three times, draining the cherries from the syrup each time.
Dry and store
Lay the cherries out to dry on dishes in the sun or on a stove.
Dip the sieve with cherries into cold water.
Place them on a soft cloth to dry further.
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
- Cherries
- Provide the fruit that is dried, giving the final chewy texture and concentrated flavour.
- Sugar
- Draws water out of the fruit and builds sweetness, helping preserve the cherries as they dry.
The step that matters
Repeating the scald and syrup draining. Sugar pulls water out of the cherries through osmosis. Each heating and draining cycle concentrates the sugar and firms the fruit. Skipping cycles or draining poorly leaves the cherries wetter and less well preserved.
“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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