To Dry Cherries with Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cherries
Stone the cherries and weigh them.
Combine the stoned cherries with 6 ounces of powdered sugar in a preserving pan.
Cook and syrup
Simmer gently over medium heat for about 20 minutes.
Let the cherries cool in the syrup, then drain them in a sieve.
Dry the cherries
Lay the cherries singly on dishes and dry them gradually.
Superior method
For a superior method, add 8 ounces of sugar to the stoned cherries and boil softly for 10 minutes.
Pour the cherries into a large bowl and let them sit in the syrup for 2 days.
Simmer the cherries again for 10 minutes, then set them aside for 2 or 3 days.
Drain the cherries slightly and dry them very slowly.
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 concentrated and dried into a chewy, sweet preserve.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens and draws moisture out of the cherries through osmosis as they cook in syrup.
- Good sugar
- Sweetens and builds a thicker syrup that helps preserve the cherries during the superior method.
The step that matters
Drying very slowly. Cherries dried too fast on the outside can form a hard skin while the inside stays moist, which risks spoilage. Gradual drying lets moisture leave evenly and keeps the fruit 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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