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Preserve

To Dry Cherries

Cherries stewed in a brown sugar syrup, then dried in the sun and packed in layers with powdered sugar.

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

Prepare the cherries

  1. Stone the cherries and save the juice.

  2. Weigh the cherries and use 1 pound of brown sugar for every 3 pounds of fruit.

Make the syrup and cook

  1. Boil the sugar with the juice for 10 minutes.

  2. Add the cherries and stew for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the cherries and lay them on dishes in the sun to dry.

  4. Pour a little syrup over the cherries to help them dry, turning them frequently.

  5. Once all the syrup is used, layer the cherries in jars, sprinkling powdered sugar between each layer.

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
Provide the fruit, whose sugar-soaked flesh becomes chewy and concentrated as it dries.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the fruit and, boiled into syrup, draws out moisture and helps preserve it.

The step that matters

Stewing the cherries in syrup. Stewing too briefly or at too high a heat can leave the fruit tough or uneven. Sugar syrup slowly replaces the cherries' water, so the fruit must stay gently simmering and well coated to dry evenly and keep its texture.

“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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