Homemade grape blanks are not only trivial juice, jam or jelly. Using modern electric dryers or just the energy of the sun, it is possible to cook pastille and homemade raisins.
You will love these new and unusual grape blanks. Recipes will help you decide and decide on an experiment. You will be pleasantly surprised by the result.
Harvesting grapes for the winter with the help of dryers
If you use an aggregate based on the principle of weathering, and not exposure to high temperatures, you can dry the berries, preserving most of the vitamins and antioxidants in them. Do not pluck the fruits from the brushes during the preparation process, but cut off, leaving the tail. In this case, the grape harvest for the winter as a whole will not lose valuable juice.
If you want to cook pastille, then the method of cutting will not affect the final result. For it, you need to take varieties without seeds and with a thin skin, grind in a blender with a peel. If necessary, honey can be sweetened. It should be taken about one full tablespoon for four hundred grams of berries.
In addition, honey also has a stabilizing effect on the grape mass. Therefore, it is better to take it crystallized - rapeseed or sunflower. Pour crushed grapes with honey into trays and dry to medium softness. The mass should not flow, but should not harden. Roll the pastile for storage into tubes and cut into pieces - you will get small spirals. An authentic recipe suggests dipping them in a special powder from inflorescences, antennae and
grape leaves. Then the pastille is better stored. The powder is prepared in the spring. When pruning branches, young leaves are retained (as well as antennae and inflorescences), separated from shoots. They are dried and frayed. Can be chopped in a blender. Such a powder has a completely indescribable delicate aroma, it must be stored in a jar under a lid and can be added as a seasoning to different dishes.
Harvesting grapes for the winter in the form of raisins
Home-made candied fruits and raisins of our own preparation, despite the fact that we are used to buying these products in the markets, have their own advantages. Dried homemade grapes can be made completely pure, which means that it can subsequently be washed and soaked in boiling water. It is also much more elastic and tasty than purchased. Using a dryer, you can make raisins from seedless grapes. You can buy berries that have fallen from the branches for this purpose - they are cheaper. They need to be sorted out and rinsed well. Then scald with boiling water, discard in a colander, wait until they cool, and load into pallets. Better spread in one layer. When the raisins begin to dry out, it needs to be turned several times. Then you can already add a thicker layer. Boiling water speeds up drying. Without scalding, the grapes will dry longer.
Pastille without dryer
Harvesting grapes for the winter is also possible if you only have a screw juicer. In this case, even grape seed and technical varieties can be used. The juice is obtained with pulp, and the pastille is even tastier than in the dryer.