Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 285 kcal | 81 kcal |
| Protein | 5 g | 1.4 g |
| Fat | 0.9 g | 0.3 g |
| saturated | 0.2 g | 0.1 g |
| Carbohydrate | 62.4 g | 17.7 g |
| sugars | 57.9 g | 16.4 g |
| Fibre | 9.5 g | 2.7 g |
| Sodium | 0 mg | 0 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
- 3.2 kg cherries (or frozen)
Instructions
- Dark sweet cherries dry better than sour ones. Sourness concentrates as the water leaves, and a morello that was merely sharp fresh becomes unpleasant dried.
- Pit them over a bowl and pour whatever juice collects back over the fruit. That juice is colour and sugar, and it is otherwise poured down the sink.
- Halve every cherry without exception. The skin is waxy, and a whole one can spend two days in the machine and still be raw at its centre.
- Set the halves cut side up. Face down they sit in their own syrup and stick hard enough to tear when you lift them.
- Dry at 57 °C for 22 hours. This is among the longest runs here, so start it in the morning rather than having the checking fall in the middle of the night.
- Squeeze a cooled half: it should feel like a raisin, pliable but with nothing wet appearing at the cut face. Tear one open if you are in any doubt.
- Condition the cooled fruit for a week in a jar, shaking it daily so the wetter pieces pass their moisture to the drier ones. Condensation on the glass sends the lot back to the trays.
- Sealed and dark they hold a year. For cherry powder, blitz them only once they are conditioned, and use a small jar — a large jar half full is mostly air, and air is what dulls a powder.
