This popular product came to us from the East. Today you can buy candied fruits in every supermarket or at the market in a tent with oriental sweets. High-quality candied fruit is a 100% natural product obtained by candiing fruits or boiling them in sugar syrup. This allows you to preserve the taste of the product and its nutritional value. This fruit semi-finished product is an excellent filler for various types of dough and a decorative element when decorating cakes, pastries, cookies, rolls, etc. Let’s try to figure out how to properly store candied fruits at home so that they do not spoil.
Best storage methods:
- In a glass jar. Both in syrup and without it.
- In a vacuum bag in the refrigerator or pantry.
- In bags or containers in the freezer.
Optimal storage conditions
- dry place;
- the temperature is not higher than 15 °C;
- absence of direct sunlight.
Based on this, the best place to preserve the perfect appearance and taste of candied fruits is a refrigerator or a dry, cool place: pantry, mezzanine, basement, cellar, balcony.
It is important to ensure that the humidity in the room is low, otherwise the sweets will dehydrate, stick together and lose their presentable appearance. This will also affect their taste, so you need to choose a place for storage where the minimum humidity is not higher than 60% throughout the shelf life.
It is also important what to store candied fruit in. It is necessary to protect the product from moisture. It is best to use the following containers:
- glass jars with lids;
- vacuum containers;
- vacuum bags.
The storage terms of candied fruit are:
- in the refrigerator (in a glass jar on the top shelf or in vacuum bags on the bottom shelf) – up to 1 year;
- on a cool balcony, in a dark storeroom or cellar – up to 1 year;
- Candied fruits are stored for the longest time in jars with syrup – up to 3 years in a dry, non-heated place.
In the freezer
And yet the best way to store fruit in sugar is freezing. Properly prepared, natural candied fruits and berries will completely preserve their taste, aroma and useful properties in the freezer. To defrost them, you will need to take them out in advance and put them in the refrigerator for 6-8 hours in the same container in which they were frozen.
Package the pieces in polyethylene vacuum or zip bags and send them to the freezer. The temperature should be from -18 °C and below. This way werfnb can be stored for 1 year.
It can also be sent to the freezer for storage and candied in sugar syrup. Their taste will not spoil, and in plastic containers they can be stored there for up to 1 year.
How to cook candied fruit
You can prepare treats in two ways:
- boil the fruit in sugar syrup until translucent;
- boil them until ready in water and then soak them in saturated sugar syrup.
Depending on how the fruits are prepared, it turns out to be edible or candied candies. You can also not remove the flaps from the syrup, but roll them into jars together with it, like jam. This will significantly increase their shelf life, and you can also prepare a candied assortment of citrus fruits or apricots, strawberries and cherries. Many housewives like to make them from sweet orange pumpkin and watermelon rinds.
How to choose
Candied fruits, berries and even vegetables can be found on sale. According to GOST, they should not be:
- too hard;
- not dried or, on the contrary, brittle;
- covered in a very large amount of sugar.
The slices should not stick to each other, and the color should match the product from which they are made.