All of us, without exception, constantly buy dried fruits on the market - raisins, dried apricots, prunes, figs. Undoubtedly, it is very convenient, fast and almost always available, because there are departments with dried fruits in every supermarket. It is not always true that the quality and price of dried fruits fit certain parameters, but it also happens that having bought a handful or two of raisins or dried apricots, even in the refrigerator they are covered with mold, thereby indicating a violation of the production drying technology ...
Would you like to try making one of the most popular dried fruits - prunes at home? The simplest process that will amaze with the result, because homemade prunes there is no comparison with the store counterpart! It has a deep fruity taste, a striking plum aroma and excellent density to the maximum. Besides, dried prunes deprived at home harmful additives and wax, with which dried fruit is processed in industrial dryers for more long-term storage. A recipe with a photo of prunes made at home, which can be fearlessly eaten by everyone without exception - is already on our website!
To make prunes in the oven you will need (output - 1.5 kg):
- fresh plum "Hungarian" - 2 kg
- sugar - 200-250 g
How to make prunes at home - a simple recipe:
Plum varieties "Hungarian" take a ripe, non-acidic, but always dense. You can try other varieties that also have sweet elastic pulp, but "Hungarian" will still be ideal for making prunes at home. In such a plum, the stone separates well, which is what we need! We wash the plum, separate the tails, leaves and everything else unnecessary.
Carefully cut a groove on one side of each plum so that you can remove the stone without dividing the plum into two halves. You should get these "shells".
Pour a teaspoon (or how much will fit) of sugar into each plum-shell. We take a saucepan and put all the plums filled with sugar in the first layer on the bottom.
In the same way, fill the pan to the top, sprinkle a small amount of sugar on top. We leave for a day. Periodically shake the pan so that the resulting syrup dissolves the sugar as much as possible.
A day later, sugar and plum juice form a liquid syrup. It will not be too much, it will not completely cover the plum, but we do not need this.
We put the plum with syrup on a small fire and bring to a boil. We do not boil the plum, just mix it a couple of times in hot syrup and immediately remove from heat after the first signs of active boiling appear. The fruits will only warm up and slightly change the shade from blue-black to reddish-plum. We recline the plum in a colander and separate the syrup from it.
Now we take a baking sheet, cover it with parchment, lay out the heated plum in rows, leaving a little space between it.
We start to wilt. The drying process will be carried out in the oven, so if you have a home kitchen electric dryer, you can use it according to the instructions. We heat the oven to 60-70 degrees and place the baking sheet in the middle position, opening the door ajar and fixing a small crack with a wooden spatula. The cooking time for prunes at home in the oven is individual, depending on the size, type of plum, on average from 4 to 8 hours.
In the process, the drain must be turned over to the other side so that it dries evenly on all sides. Determine the readiness of the plum by such signs: it should not be wet, but become elastic and dense.
When the plum has dried sufficiently, soak it for 2-3 days in a room, on a kitchen window sill or on a sunny balcony for the final result.
Prunes at home are ready!
Now it can be used for its intended purpose - just use it as a healthy snack, add it to cereals, desserts and pastries.
Bon Appetit!
Prunes are very tasty and healthy treat which is especially popular in winter time. dried prunes rich useful trace elements and vitamins, and therefore its constant use is very beneficial for health and for strengthening the immune system. Prunes are great for a variety of diets. Prunes have a very positive effect on the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract. Prunes also strengthen nervous system and normalizes blood pressure.
Prunes have many varieties and for this reason, only those varieties that are most suitable for this should be dried. by the most the best variety for drying, the variety of prunes "Italian Hungarian" is considered. These plums have elastic pulp, dense skin, large fruits, blue with a bluish tint. Also, for drying, such varieties of prunes as: "Burton", "Hungarian Violet", "Raisin-Eric", "Hungarian Azhanskaya" and "Ugorka" are used.
To prepare a quality product, you need to properly prepare the plums. For this, plums are plucked only as ripe as possible. Fruits that have fallen to the ground are not suitable for drying. In order to properly harvest prunes, you need to shake the tree so that wormy and rotten fruits fall. The next day, you can pick plums from the branches.
In order to prepare prunes for drying, it is necessary to withstand the fruits in baskets, on fresh air within 3 days. The plums are then sorted and sorted by size. Selected plums should be washed very well until clear water begins to drain from the fruits. Next, the prunes are subjected to heat treatment and poured hot water.
After that, the prunes must be treated with alkali. To do this, a solution is prepared from one percent caustic soda, which is boiled, after which the prunes are poured and kept in soda for 20 seconds. Next, the prunes are cooled and washed from soda. This procedure is done in order to remove the wax coating that is on the skin of the prunes.
Drying prunes
Drying prunes is significantly different from drying other fruits and berries. First, prunes need to wither. To do this, the fruits are placed in a special dryer and dried at a temperature of 40-50 degrees for several hours. After that, the temperature is raised and dried like other fruits.
The best plum variety for making homemade prunes with pit is Hungarian. It has juicy, sweet flesh and tolerates a short heat treatment. Prunes at home from Hungarian it turns out a rich black color with a shiny surface. It can be used as an independent dessert, added to salads or put in meat sauces. Prunes help strengthen the immune system, increase intestinal motility, slow down the growth of bacteria, and normalize the functioning of the cardiovascular system.
Ingredients:
- plum Hungarian - 1 kg;
- granulated sugar - 1 kg;
- water - 400 ml;
- baking soda - 1 tsp
How to cook homemade prunes with a stone
From one kilogram of fresh plums, about 250 g of prunes with a stone are obtained.
For drying it is necessary to choose ripe fruits. They should have a whole, intact skin and firm flesh. The use of wormy plums is unacceptable. Remove stems and rinse plums thoroughly under running water.
It will not work to wash off the whitish coating from the surface of the fruit. It should be removed with a weak alkaline solution. To do this, boil 1 liter of water. Then pour 1 tsp into it. soda.
Dip in the resulting plum solution for 30 seconds. Then quickly transfer them to cold water. It is better to do this in small portions. In this case, the solution should boil all the time. If the plaque was not removed the first time, the procedure can be repeated. The fruits processed in this way will not only become more attractive in appearance, but will also dry faster under the sun. This happens due to microcracks formed during blanching on the skin of plums.
Then you should prepare a syrup from granulated sugar dissolved in 400 ml of water. It must be brought to a boil. To prevent the sugar from burning, you need to stir it periodically until it is completely dissolved.
Plums should be placed in boiling syrup and let them boil for 5 minutes.
Then the fruits should be removed with a slotted spoon and transferred to a metal colander. The liquid flowing from the drain must be collected and poured into syrup.
After 30 minutes, the fruits must be laid out on a tray and sent under the sun for 10-12 hours.
Then the plums should be put back into the syrup and boiled for 5 minutes. Further, all stages are repeated until the plums are wrinkled.
Gleaming with glossy sides, prunes lying on the shelves of stores call for buying it as soon as possible and, of course, eating it. But we know how this “gloss” was created and therefore the beautiful appearance of dried fruits does not seduce us. After all, it is quite clear that, treated with glycerin, sulfur compounds, or liquid smoke, "sparkling" prunes have almost completely lost their beneficial features. And if the purchase of dried fruits is still planned, then it is better to purchase a product without a bright “color” and a more natural look. And if the fear of buying is still strong, then there is perhaps the only way out - to cook natural prunes at home. We will now advise you on how to make prunes with your own hands.
How to make prunes at home
Naturally, first of all, we will deal with the selection and preparatory processing fresh fruit. For the process of preparing dried prunes, we need to pick up very ripe, even better overripe, plum fruits.
The selected fruits, of course, are first thoroughly washed and, if desired, the seeds are removed. It should be noted that prunes at home can be made both pitted and with pits. True, leaving a seemingly unnecessary bone, we will save much more in dried prunes. large quantity useful substances.
After blanching, we immediately rinse our plums with hot water and proceed to the process of drying the prunes.
Of course, we will dry our prepared plum fruits in the oven! That's just watch out temperature regime process, we will be very careful to make our prunes not only tasty, but also healthy.
Since the procedure for drying fruits in the process, how to make prunes at home, is the most significant, let's, for convenience, divide it into three stages.
Stage one
We lay out the plums on a baking sheet and, putting it in an oven preheated to 50 degrees, dry the fruits for 3-4 hours.
Stage two
We take out the tray from the oven. Stir the plums (carefully, they are hot) and cool. After the fruits have completely cooled, we preheat our oven to 70 degrees and place a baking sheet with plums there for another 5 hours.
Stage three
After removing the baking sheet from the oven, repeat the previously performed steps (mix and cool). We bring the temperature in the oven to 90 degrees and, placing a baking sheet in it, dry our home-made prunes to full readiness, spending another 4 hours on this.
That's all our advice on how to make prunes at home.
to obtain a shiny surface of dried fruits, it is not at all necessary to process them with something. If, shortly before the completion of drying the fruits in the oven, increase the temperature to 120 degrees, then the sugar that comes out of the fruits caramelizes the dried fruits and gives their surface a gloss without the use of any "chemistry".
Naturally, having made prunes, it is also important to provide it with the conditions necessary for storage. You need to store cooked prunes, either in paper bags or in wooden boxes. You can, of course, store dried fruits in a closed glass container, but for this, prunes must be 100% dry. Some housewives use Bay leaf, pouring a small amount laurel dried fruits prepared for storage.
You can, of course, saving yourself from unnecessary troubles, buy prunes at the market or in a store, but if you know how to make prunes at home, why put yourself and your loved ones in possible danger. However, decide for yourself!
Dried plum, or, in other words, prunes is a very healthy delicacy. But are you 100% sure that you are buying a quality product in the store, not processed, to improve appearance, any chemicals? I don't think anyone can answer this question unambiguously. Today we propose to consider ways to dry plums yourself at home. Such a product will certainly be of the highest standard, since the entire cooking process will be controlled by you personally.
You can dry any variety of plums, but the fruits that are firm and dense to the touch are best kept in shape. In this case, the product must be fully matured.
The preparatory stage consists of several steps:
- Sorting. When sorting through fruits, specimens with rot and various damage should be immediately excluded. Only the best fruits should be dried.
- Cleansing. Fruits are washed under running water and dried with paper towels.
- Removal of bones. The plum is cut in half and the core is removed. This completes the preparation of pitted plums for drying. You can proceed directly to dehydration. If you plan to dry prunes with a stone, then we skip this step and follow all the other steps.
- Blanching. Dissolve 1 teaspoon in a liter of boiling water baking soda, and place the plum in this solution for 20 seconds. The amount of liquid is calculated so that the fruit is completely immersed in water. If necessary, increase the portion several times. This procedure is necessary in order to remove the wax layer from the surface. The peel from being in boiling water should crack, which will contribute to better evaporation of the liquid.
- After blanching, the plum is washed under running water.
- In conclusion, the fruits are thoroughly dried with paper towels.
All ways of drying plums
In the sun
The prepared plum is laid out on grates or in well-ventilated boxes, and taken out into the sun. Every evening, containers with fruit are brought into the room and put back only the next day, not earlier than the dew has come down.
The total drying time is 4 to 6 days. It depends on the weather conditions and the size of the fruit.
After drying is completed, dried fruits must be finally dried in the shade. This will take another 3-4 days.
In the oven
To keep the baking sheet clean, it is covered with baking paper. Also, drying can be done on special grates. Prepared fruits are laid out in one layer. If the plum was cut in half, then it is laid with the skin down.
Drying in the oven consists of several stages:
- 5 hours at +50ºС;
- 6 hours at +70ºС;
- until the product is ready at a temperature of +75…+80ºС.
Remove the baking sheet between stages. oven Turn the prunes over and let them cool completely. After - continue the process according to the instructions.
Watch the video from the channel "Men in the Kitchen!" How to cook prunes at home
In an electric dryer
Plums are laid out on special pallets also in one layer. If you dry the halves of the fruit, then they must be placed cut up.
The temperature regime for the entire drying time will vary:
- Stage 1: dry for 4 hours at a temperature of +50 ... + 55ºС. We change the trays in places and turn the pieces over.
- Stage 2: dry for 4 - 6 hours at a temperature of + 60ºС. We change trays, turn over plums.
- Stage 3: until the product is ready, approximately 4 - 6 hours at a temperature of + 75 ... + 80ºС.
Watch the video from the channel "Ezidri Master" - Drying plums
in the microwave
For express drying in the microwave, you need to use only hard fruits, otherwise the plum will turn into porridge.
So, we take out the bones from the fruit and put them in a flat bowl lined with a paper towel. Slices should be placed cut side up. Cover the top of the slices with a paper towel.
Turn on the microwave at medium power for 3 minutes. At the end of this time, we remove the napkin, and put the products back in the oven for the same amount of time.
After the microwave signal, set it to full power, and dry the plums for another 1 minute. If this time is not enough, you can continue drying, checking for readiness every 60 seconds.
How to store prunes
Ready dried fruits should be elastic and firm. They should not stick to your hands or crumble when squeezed.
You can store prunes for 1 year away from products with a pungent odor.
Dried fruit containers glass jars, plastic containers or bags - it is better to keep in the refrigerator. If the product turned out to be dried, then it should be stored in the freezer.
