Thanks to good taste and aroma, prunes are widely demanded in cooking. In addition, dried fruit in winter serves as a source of vitamins, dietary fiber and organic acids, the deficiency of which is experienced by everyone in this period. Find out how prunes are harvested from the recipes presented in the article.
Natural drying of prunes
As a feedstock for the production of prunes, it is recommended to choose plum varieties with large dark-colored fruits, sweet taste and easily separated stone, such as "Ugorka", "Tragedy", "Wanheim's Hungarian" or "Azhanskaya Hungarian".
To prepare 1 kg of prunes, you will need to take 4.5 kg of fully ripened dense fruits. The process of harvesting prunes is carried out in several ways - in natural conditions, in the oven and in an electric dryer. Harvesting prunes by a natural method will take 8-10 days. The process itself includes several stages:
- Training. Before laying out for drying, the stalks are removed from the plums selected for harvesting, then they are washed, divided into halves. Lay out on wooden trays in one layer, cut up, at some distance from each other.
- Drying in the sun. To carry it out, trays with plums are taken out into the air and set in the sun. Covered with gauze from insects, soak for about 5 days. To prevent mold from forming on them during this time, the fruits must be turned several times daily.
- Drying in the shade. Already dried plums should be transferred to a shaded place and kept there for about 3-4 days.
Advice. Harvesting prunes will be faster if the fruits are pre-blanched by dipping for a minute in boiling water with soda - 1 tbsp. soda per 1 liter of water, and then, removing, rinse cold water. The cracks formed on the plum skin will allow the pulp to dry faster.
How to dry prunes in the oven
This method allows you to harvest prunes much faster than when drying. naturally. As in the previous recipe, the plums selected for harvesting must be washed and blanched in a soda solution for up to 2 minutes, then rinsed with water and air-dried for an hour.
Advice! In order for prunes to turn out to be of high quality and tasty, it is recommended to dry them together with the seeds.
Heating the oven to t ° 60 ° C, it is necessary to place prepared plums in it and keep them at this temperature for 5 hours. After taking it out, let it rest for another 5 hours just in the air. The next stage of drying in the oven is carried out at t ° 70 ° C and lasts 6 hours, after which the product is again allowed to settle for some time. At the final stage, prunes are dried until ready at t ° 80 ° C.
It is important when drying prunes in the oven, do not overdry it. The fact that it is completely ready can be judged by its appearance - the fruits, while maintaining a soft texture, do not secrete juice. It is necessary to store such a product in jars, tightly closing the lid. The best place is a pantry or a balcony.
Prunes in an electric dryer
Before laying the fruits in an electric dryer, they are prepared similarly to the previous recipes, that is, they are sorted out and washed. If the plum is dried whole, then the fruits should definitely be blanched in a soda solution, but if they are divided into halves and the seeds removed, you can do without blanching. Preparing prunes:
- at the first stage, the plums are dried in an electric dryer at t ° 50 ° C for 3-4 hours, after which they must be cooled. If fruits divided into halves can be processed, they are laid out with slices up;
- the second stage - drying the fruits in an electric dryer at t ° 60 ° C for another 5 hours, after which the fruits must be cooled again;
- the third stage is drying at t ° 80 ° C for 6 hours.
Attention! In order for the drying of the fruits to take place evenly, it is necessary to periodically change the pallets in places.
Prunes prepared in this way should also be stored in jars, in ventilated areas. Use finished product It can be used in cooking other dishes or as an independent delicacy.
The original recipe for sweet prunes
To prepare several jars of this delicacy, you need a kilogram of plums, a pound of sugar and 2 stacks. water.
- Prepare the fruits by removing the seeds from them and dividing them into halves.
- Prepare the syrup, put the plums in it, bring to a boil.
- Take out the fruits, let the syrup drain, spread the plums on a baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar.
- Place in an oven preheated to t° 50°C. Dry at this temperature in 3 stages. The duration of each stage is 12 hours. + 12-hour breaks between them.
- Put the finished product in jars and use as independent dish or as a component in the preparation of desserts or drinks.
Having prepared plums according to the presented recipes, you can diversify the winter diet and enjoy the prunes taste by adding dried or dried home product in familiar meals.
How to cook prunes: video
Good day to all!
Today, for all those who have such a wonderful fruit plant as a plum in their garden, we will talk about some moments of harvesting these delicious fruits.
Plum is tasty not only “alive”, but also in compotes and jams. But there's one more healthy treat- this is dried fruit, or as it is also called prunes.
When the time comes for an abundant harvest of fruits and berries, summer residents not only prepare them for the winter in the form of jam, compotes, but also dry them. Drying allows the product not to deteriorate, to be stored for a long time, and in winter to use dried fruits and fruits and create something delicious out of them.
About how you can dry the plum will be discussed in this review.
The simplest and, by the way, the oldest way of drying fruits is with the help of sunlight. When there was no electricity and gas, everything was dried in the sun. But, despite the simplicity, this method has its own rules.
And you need to start, of course, with the fruits themselves. The plum must be sorted out, rejecting all rotten and, even with signs of rot.
After that, it must be washed well and, having divided in half, remove the bone from it.
You can, of course, dry it completely, but then all this will last long enough, and it’s not a fact that it will dry properly.
Next, you will need sheets of cardboard or newspapers, boxes or pallets, baking sheets, in general, everything where the fruits can be laid out to dry. The plum is laid out with the cut part up, after which it is taken out into the sun. Or first spread cardboard or paper in the sun, and then lay out a plum on them. If you have a large flat roof area, then this will be ideal option for drying.
With the onset of night, as well as if it rains, drying can be brought into the house. For uniform drying, as well as so that the plum does not become damp, it is turned over every two days.
If the weather is good sunny, without precipitation, then drying takes only about a week. However, readiness must be checked by touch. The plum should be elastic, and when pressed on it, juice did not stand out!
In general, for drying, it is better to choose fruits that are not watery, but with strong pulp. Experienced gardeners recommend using varieties such as Hungarian or Renklod.
In order for the plum to dry better, it can be blanched. What does it mean? A weak solution of soda is made (about 0.1%), into which the drain is lowered for several minutes. After that, it is washed with cold water, and only then dried. During blanching, the skin of the fruit is covered with cracks, which accelerates the process of evaporation of moisture from it.
Drying plums in a gas and electric oven
If gas or electric oven plums can be dried easily. Whole preparatory stage the same as described above. We only lay out the fruits on a baking sheet or wire rack that will fit your oven.
We divide only large plums in half, small ones can be left whole. After that, blanch in a solution of soda for a few seconds and rinse in cold water. Next, lay it on a towel to remove excess moisture, and at this time we ourselves preheat the oven. It must be heated up to 50 °C. Now you can lay out the dried plum on a baking sheet. Lay it cut side up.
The plum is dried in several stages:
- At the first stage, the drying time is 4 hours. After that, dried fruits must be cooled for 5 hours.
- At the next stage, we heat the oven to 80 ° C, and dry the plum for 6 hours, after which we cool it again.
- And finally, at the last stage, the temperature in the oven should be 100 ° C, but we have been drying for 30 minutes.
Prunes are ready, they can be stored in any glass containers with tight-fitting lid.
Video and description of how to dry plums in an electric dryer
There is such a wonderful thing as an electric dryer. Since it is designed exclusively for drying, this process will take place in it much better and faster than in any other way.
First of all, we prepare the plum, sort it, and discard the bad one. Blanch in soda solution, then rinse well. Further. Cut in half and remove the bones.
We lay out the prepared fruits on pallets cut up, pack in a dryer and close. Then there are three stages:
- First, set the temperature to 45 degrees and dry for three hours. Every hour it is necessary to change the pallets and let the drain cool down twice for four hours.
- The second drying takes place at a temperature of 65 degrees and lasts for five hours. In this case, you must also let it cool for 5 hours.
- And finally, the third drying at a temperature of 70 degrees lasts 5 hours. Usually this is enough. So that the dried fruit turns out to be elastic and does not ooze when pressed on it.
At the end of this process, we get wonderful prunes, which can not only be eaten in such a dried form, but also used for various culinary purposes.
That, perhaps, is all about drying plums. If you have a lot of it and you don’t know what to do with it, use the drying tips and prepare prunes for yourself for the winter. I'm sure you won't regret it.
And finally, a short video on how to dry plums in an electric dryer.
Good luck with your harvest!
If a Hungarian plum grows in your dacha, be sure to try to cook dried prunes. This delicious dried fruit in winter will become an indispensable source of natural vitamins and vegetable fiber.
It can be put in pies and other pastries, used for cooking meat and vegetable dishes, salads, desserts, compotes, or you can just chew like a kind of fruit candy. Pitted prunes are more convenient to use in cooking, but when dried with a stone, the berry retains much more useful substances.
Prunes are especially useful for those who suffer from diabetes: the sweet dried fruit contains practically no sugar - only fructose and glucose. Overweight people can nibble on it if they feel like eating something sweet.
Preparing plums for drying
To prepare prunes, you need to choose large, but not overripe. If you take soft berries, when dried, juice will flow out of them, and good prunes will not work. It is advisable to sort by choosing plums of the same size for drying. Selected berries must be washed, the “tails” removed and blanched in water with soda to remove the wax coating.
Take a spoonful of soda per liter of boiling water, stir, then lower the plums in a colander, hold for about 30 seconds, remove and pour over with cold water to remove the soda, then spread on a towel to dry the berries. On the surface of properly blanched plums, you can see small cracks through which moisture will quickly be removed.
Drying plums
To obtain prunes, drying will have to be divided into three stages, so the whole process will take two to three days. During drying, you must strictly maintain the temperature of the oven so as not to get baked plums instead of dried ones - they, of course, are also tasty, but they will not be stored for a long time.
Washed and dried plums should be laid out on a baking sheet in one row, trying so that they do not touch each other. Meanwhile, the oven is heated to 45-50 degrees - at this temperature, the plums should be dried for 4-5 hours. It is not necessary to close the door tightly so that moisture can freely exit the oven.
At the end of drying, you should take out the baking sheet, turn the plums over and leave to cool, covering them with light gauze from insects. 
The second stage of drying takes place at a temperature of about 60 degrees. It also takes 4-5 hours, and at the end of it, the plums taken out of the oven must be turned over.
At the third stage, plums are dried at a temperature of 80-90 degrees. Drying usually takes 5-6 hours, but at this stage you should look into the oven from time to time and check the condition of the drains so as not to overdry them.
10-15 minutes before the end of drying, heat should be added to 120 degrees - thanks to this, the sugar protruding on the surface of the plums caramelizes, making the skin glossy and shiny.
Natural drying of plums
If the weather is hot, and time is not in a hurry, you can dry the plum naturally. To do this, prepared plums must be laid out on a baking sheet or dish and taken out in the sun. For drying, it is advisable to choose a place that is illuminated by the sun all day.
By evening, the baking sheet should be removed into the house so that night moisture does not settle on the plums. Natural drying takes 5-6 days. Every day, plums need to be turned over, substituting under the sun's rays on different sides. Ready prunes should be moderately soft, elastic, not overdried.
Prunes storage
Ready, well-dried prunes are best stored in a paper bag. Even if the berries are not dried out a little, the rest of the moisture will come out over time. In a sealed container - a glass or ceramic jar - only prunes that have lost all moisture should be put, otherwise the berries may become moldy. 
To prevent moths or other insects from starting in dried fruits, you can shift them with a bay leaf, the smell of which repels any pests. In addition, the leaves absorb the rest of the moisture, preventing mold from developing.
In order for dishes complemented by spicy to be present on your table, it is not necessary to purchase this one in a distribution network, especially since it costs a lot. You can easily cook prunes with your own hands at home. And given that now, as a rule, to find a quality product that is not treated with various hazards for long-term storage and presentable appearance, is almost impossible, then the motivation for self cooking increases significantly.
If you are already ready to start harvesting, then our following recommendations will help you cope with the task perfectly, and as a result you will get a very tasty and no doubt healthy product.
Cooking prunes at home
To get truly tasty and high-quality homemade prunes, we choose for this purpose the most ripe fruits of plums, which very easily part with the seeds without damaging the inner pulp.
Wash the selected fruits carefully and remove the seeds. Then prepare the blanching solution. To do this, dissolve one hundred grams in ten liters of water. baking soda and warm it up to a temperature of ninety degrees.
Immerse the prepared plums in the resulting soda mixture and hold for twenty to thirty seconds. Wash fruits immediately hot water, let it drain well, and lay it out on a baking sheet, which we previously covered with parchment.
The whole process of drying prunes includes three stages. Initially, we place the plums in an oven preheated to fifty degrees and hold for three to four hours. Then we let the fruits cool completely, having previously mixed them, and again put them in the oven, now already heated to seventy degrees. After five hours of drying, take out the baking sheet, mix and also cool. At the final third stage, we place the cream in an oven heated to ninety degrees and dry for another four hours. At each stage of drying, the oven door should be slightly ajar.
If you did everything right, then at the end of all the steps, you should get delicious homemade prunes as a result. If desired, you can give the dried fruit a natural shine. To do this, at the end of the last stage, we increase the temperature regime to one hundred and twenty degrees and hold for several minutes. At the same time, the sugar contained in the fruit comes to the surface and caramelizes, thereby giving a glossy sheen.
Owners of an electric dryer can easily cook homemade prunes with it.
How to make prunes from plums in an electric dryer?
You can dry the fruits, both with seeds and without them. For drying and drying, it is better to choose the fruits of the Hungarian variety. They are quite meaty, and are great for this purpose to taste.
So, the plums are washed, if desired, they are freed from the stone. Now we need, as in traditional version blanch fruits. To do this, we lower them for twenty seconds into a soda solution heated to a temperature of ninety degrees, prepared at the rate of one hundred grams of soda per ten liters of water. Then we wash the plums well, let them drain, and place the dryers on pallets not very close to each other.
The temperature regime of the dryer should be approximately the same as when drying in the oven and also include several stages. Initially, dry at fifty degrees for about four hours. Then we raise the temperature to sixty degrees and hold for five hours. The same or a little more time will be needed for drying at seventy degrees. After each stage of drying, it is necessary to remove the drain trays for about five hours to cool and chaff.
Perhaps your plums will be more or less juicy and the drying time will be correspondingly longer or shorter. We periodically check the readiness of prunes and determine the time of its preparation at home on our own.
How to store prunes at home?
Ready prunes are best stored in paper bags or wooden boxes. But you can also put it in glass containers, tie paper on top and store it in a cool place.
Gleaming with glossy sides, prunes lying on the shelves of stores call for buying and, of course, eating them as soon as possible. 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. About how to make prunes with your own hands, we will advise you together with now.
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 , oversleeping 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!
