Few people know, but candied cherries can be quite easily prepared at home. How to make such a treat, we will tell a little further. We will also tell you how to use this dessert and store it all long winter.
General information
Candied cherries, the recipe of which will be described below, are often sold in stores. Such a product is very loved by young children. And this is no accident. After all, it is very sweet and tasty, and also has a pleasant acidity.
If you do not trust large producers, we recommend making candied cherries at home. It should be noted that such a process can take you 1 or 2 days. However, this does not mean that you have to spend all day near the stove. You just need to process the main product and wait until it reaches the desired state.
Berry processing
Before making candied fruits from cherries, you should purchase suitable berries. Such a product should be freshly picked and ripe. It is carefully sorted out, removing wormy elements, and then laid out in a colander and washed thoroughly in warm water. After that, the berries are dried by laying on a towel, and the bones are removed. The resulting product is the basis for candied fruit.
Candied cherries: a recipe for cooking
You can’t cook such a dessert in many ways. After all, it is done in one way that our mothers and grandmothers have long been using. However, you can select the proportions of the components for such a treat individually. If you want very sweet candied fruits, we recommend using more sugar. Otherwise, it should be added strictly by prescription.
So how to cook candied cherries at home? To do this, we need the following components:
- ripe pitted cherries - 1 kg;
- beet sugar - about 500 g + a little to sprinkle with products;
- cold water - a little, about 100 ml.
We prepare the components
Before preparing candied fruits from cherries, the berry should be carefully processed. How this is done, we told at the very beginning of the article.
After the berries are peeled, they are laid out in a deep and enameled bowl, and then they begin to prepare the syrup. It is done quite simply. Pour cold water into a bowl and then bring it to a boil and add granulated sugar. Given that the amount of the last component significantly exceeds the volume of the first, the ingredients should be mixed regularly. In this case, it is advisable to keep the products on a very low fire. If you do not adhere to these rules, then you risk getting not a sweet and thick syrup, but a burnt sugar mass, from which it will be difficult to make any kind of dessert.
Extract of berries in sugar
After the thick syrup is cooked, you can safely proceed to combine the products. To do this, the whole sugar mass is poured into the cherry, and then it is thoroughly mixed without damaging the integrity of the berries. In this form, the product is left at room temperature for 6 or 7 hours. During this time, the cherry will give its juice, making the volume of berry mass a little more. In this case, the sugar syrup should harden slightly and make the cherry glazed.
Thermal processing of berries
How to cook candied cherries? You can familiarize with a photo of this unusual delicacy in the article.
After the berries are infused in sugar syrup, you should proceed to their heat treatment. To do this, put the dishes with cherries on a small fire and very slowly bring them to a boil. Cooking the berry for too long is not recommended. From the moment of boiling, it is cooked for about 5-10 minutes.
After the specified time, the hot treat is removed from the stove and left aside for another 6 hours. After this, the heat treatment procedure is repeated. By this time, the cherry should completely absorb the syrup and wrinkle noticeably.
The process of making candied fruit in the oven
After double boiling the cherries in sugar syrup, it is discarded in a colander and completely deprived of sweet moisture. By the way, it’s good to use glass liquid for making a delicious berry drink. As for the cherry itself, then after depriving the syrup it is laid out in a bowl and seasoned with granulated sugar. Thoroughly mixing the components, you should get pretty elastic berries. They are carefully laid out on a baking sheet, which is pre-covered with baking paper. In this form, the cherry is sent to the oven, where it is kept for 7-8 hours. At the same time, they must observe a temperature regime of 120 degrees.
After the end of the heat treatment, you should get quite resilient and small in size candied cherries.
How and where to store?
Most people store home-made candied fruit in hermetically sealed containers. However, experienced chefs argue that such products are no worse stored in ordinary bags. The main thing is to make sure that cherries are completely free of moisture. If it remains, then the berries will quickly mold and become unusable.
Candied fruits can be stored both at room temperature and in a refrigerator. But whichever of the presented methods you choose, a bag with dried sugar cherries should be placed only in a dark place, without access to sunlight.
Another way to cook
Candied cherries for the winter can be made not only using the oven, but also using a special dryer. If you do not have such a device, we recommend preparing products in the open air. To do this, cherries without syrup are spread on a flat surface lined with paper and left at room temperature (preferably in a draft). At the same time, exposure to berries should be avoided by sunlight. Otherwise, the sugar in which the cherries were boned will begin to melt, and when combined with the juice, it will contribute to the appearance of syrup.
How long should berries be dried outdoors? Candied cherries for the winter at room temperature are prepared for a rather long time. Someone needs 6-7 days, and someone all 10 days.
After drying, you should get shriveled and very sweet berries, which should be stored exactly as described in the first recipe.
How to use?
Candied cherries are used in different ways. Some housewives add them to the dough for baking or decorate them with various cakes, cakes and other desserts. However, most people prefer to use such products with tea, replacing their usual sweets. It should be noted that candied berries always turn out to be very sweet and delicious. They contain a large number of useful substances, including vitamins, antioxidants and minerals.