Dried fruits are a real salvation in the long winter. When properly dried, they retain vitamins and minerals. They are easier to store than frozen, as they are reduced in volume and do not take up space in the refrigerator. Today the subject of our conversation is dried cherries and different ways of drying it.
Berry preparation
Sort the cherries, sort, remove the stalks. Small cherry is preferred as it dries faster.
Rinse the berries. Boil the water by adding 1 teaspoon per liter of liquid to it. Prepare a large pot or bowl of cold water
Pour boiling water over sour cherries and immediately place them in cold water. Put in a colander and let the liquid drain. This procedure is called blanching. It helps soften the skin of the berries, which will speed up the drying process.
After that, you can remove the bones. This is not necessary if you plan to use berries only for cooking compotes. In other cases, it is more convenient to use seedless cherries, which can be removed with a special device, a juice tube, a stick, a knitting needle, a hairpin.
Drying in the sun
Line a tray or baking sheet with thick paper. Lay on the surface of the berry. Place the tray outside in a sunny location. During the day, let the berries dry under the rays, and at night, remove the cherries under the roof.
If you dry whole berries, the process will take four days. Dried cherries should be elastic, not secrete juice when pressed and have a slightly glossy surface.
If you cut the fruits into halves, then after this time they need to be placed in an oven preheated to 55-60 degrees and kept there for 10 hours. In this case, 2-3 hours before the end of drying, you should increase the temperature to 70-75 degrees.
From 1 kilogram of fresh berries, approximately 200 grams of dried berries are obtained.
Oven drying
If you do not want to wait until the berries dry naturally, you can use the oven. You get exactly the same dried cherry. The recipe is as follows.
Prepare sugar syrup: pour 1 liter of water into the pan, wait for it to boil and gradually (one tablespoon each) add 800 grams of sugar. Stir thoroughly until it is completely dissolved.
Set a medium fire. Put the berries in water and cook for 5-8 minutes. Then catch them with a large spoon or ladle and transfer to a colander. It is advisable to do this over a large clean bowl so that delicious cherry syrup does not disappear. If there are a lot of cherries, then similarly process in batches using the same water.
When the liquid has completely drained from the berries, lay them on a baking sheet covered with baking paper. Place it on the highest level of the oven, set the temperature to 165 degrees and keep the berries inside for 3 hours. Then lower the temperature to 135 degrees - let them dry further. This can take from 12 hours to a day.
During drying, the oven door must always be ajar.
Dryer drying
Berries are prepared as described above. The only subtlety is that when using the dryer, the bones will have to be removed, since the protective shell must be broken. Otherwise, hot air will not penetrate, and instead of dried you will get boiled cherries. You can simply damage (crush, cut) each berry, leaving the bones in place, but this is irrational.
The rest of the process is simple: cherries are laid out in the dryer, the average mode is set (55-60 degrees). If the berries are laid close to each other, then they need to be stirred periodically.
Dried cherries should be slightly soft and sticky when ready. If it became hard, it means that you went too far with the dryer.
Dried cherry, method one
There are not only dried cherries, but also dried cherries.
Prepare the cherry in the usual way. Combine sugar with water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. For 1 kilogram of cherries, 250 grams of sugar and 300 ml of water will be required.
Put half the berries in a pan. When the water boils again, cover the container with a lid and cook for 7 minutes, then put the berries in a colander. Treat the remaining cherries in the same way. Remove bones if necessary.
After the liquid has drained, lay the berries to dry on a baking sheet or tray. You can do this with your hands or tweezers - as you prefer. Lining paper or lubricating the surface is optional.
Turn the cherries over the next day or every other day.
Dry to the degree of softness that you need. Depending on the temperature and humidity in the room, the process will take one to two weeks. If it is possible to place in the sun, then faster.
From 1 kilogram of fresh berries, about 300 grams of dried are obtained.
Dried cherry, method two
Prepare cherries, put in an enamel pan and sprinkle with sugar. Sugar can be taken 400-500 grams per 1 kilogram of cherries - depending on how sweet the berries themselves are.
After that, leave the cherries for a day at room temperature to separate the juice. After this time, throw the berries in a colander. Cook sugar syrup from 300 ml of water and 300 grams of sugar. Remove the syrup from the heat, put the berries in it and let stand for 5 minutes.
Lay the cherries taken from the sweet water on a baking sheet in one layer and place in the oven preheated to 80 degrees for half an hour.
Remove the berries from the oven and let them cool completely at room temperature. After that, carefully turn them over with a wooden spatula and send them back to the oven for half an hour, but already at a temperature of 70 degrees.
After the second drying, cool the berries again and repeat the “session” of drying at a temperature of 65-70 degrees for 30 minutes.
Storage of dried berries
Store dried cherries at home. preferably in an airtight container or in a glass jar with a lid. Even better if you sterilize the jars first. It is acceptable to use a cotton bag, but this will shorten the shelf life of dried fruits. Plastic bags should not be used, since in them the cherry will mold after a while.
You can make small cloth bags of salt and put them in a bowl of berries to increase shelf life.
Make sure that the cherries dry evenly. Select and dry the berries that have not been dried, otherwise during storage they can cause pests that spoil the entire batch.
The optimum temperature is from 0 to 10 degrees, so it is preferable to place dried fruits in the refrigerator. In such conditions, dried cherry "will live" for about a year and a half.
At room temperature, the shelf life is reduced to a year. In this case, it is better to choose the upper shelves of kitchen cabinets for placement, since the air is drier there.
If you place the berry in a cloth bag, then let it lie as far away as possible from products with a pungent odor.
During storage, especially when using leaky containers, periodically check for bugs in the berries.
The benefits and harms of dried cherries
Dried cherries, the recipe of which is very simple, not only diversifies the winter menu, but also makes it useful. It contains vitamins C, A, PP, as well as calcium, phosphorus, zinc, potassium, iron, antioxidants.
Pectins remove harmful substances from the body, improve intestinal motility, and normalize metabolism.
Dried cherries are not recommended for people with chronic lung diseases and high acidity of gastric juice. With diabetes, it should be consumed in limited quantities.
So we figured out how to make and how to store dried cherries. Bon Appetit!