How to dry prunes in different ways at home. Prunes or dried plums - how to make prunes at home How prunes are made

Prunes displayed on the shelves of grocery stores look beautiful and shiny. But often there is no naturalness behind this brilliance. To give dried fruits a similar look, an unscrupulous manufacturer treats them with sulfur or liquid smoke, covers them with a thin layer of wax or glycerin. There is little benefit from such a product, besides, it is not cheap. Therefore, good housewives have long learned to cook prunes on their own. Indeed, in the summer in the harvest year, plums can be bought very cheaply. Cooking does not take much time and effort. Therefore, with a little effort, you can provide yourself and your family with a healthy and tasty product for the whole winter.

Prunes are very useful for the human body. It is actively used in the fight against constipation and other diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. Prunes cleanse the intestines effectively, but gently. In addition, after drying, prunes retain all the beneficial substances and vitamins that were contained in the plum. But how to prepare the product so that it remains useful, safe, and also preserved until spring?

Recipe for natural prunes

There is nothing superfluous in this recipe, only plums. Such prunes are suitable for people who adhere to the rules of a healthy diet. Let's start cooking natural treats.

1. It is best to dry prunes from the Hungarian plum variety. In this case, you will receive a product that is as close as possible in appearance to the store. Although, in fact, prunes can be prepared from any plum, even a round one.
2. Fruit for drying should be ripe, but moderately hard and fleshy. If you buy a plum, pay attention to the fact that the pulp is easily separated from the stone. For drying, choose only strong fruits without wormholes. Sluggish and shriveled plums are best set aside.
3. Some are trying to get rid of the whitish coating on the surface of the fruit. In order for the plum to last for a long time, it really should be washed off. However, this is not easy to do, so we will soak the fruits in alkaline water. Dissolve a little soda in a basin (a teaspoon per three liters of water) and dip the plum into the solution. After a while, it will be easy to clean and rinse under running water.
4. Fruits are best dried without pits. Small plums can be left with a stone, but in winter you will have to be very careful not to spoil the tooth on an unnoticed stone.
5. After removing the seeds, the fruits must be cut in half. In the form of halves, it is much easier to dry them.
6. The next step is blanching. Put a pot of water on the fire and bring it to a boil. Dip the halves of the plums into the water and wait 5-10 minutes. After that, remove the plums and immediately transfer them to cold (possibly ice) water. Remember, the fruits should be soft, but elastic and not cooked.
7. After that, lay the halves on a baking sheet in one layer and dry for 2-3 hours at a temperature of 60-80 degrees. At the same time, open the oven slightly so as not to overdry the product. Turn the plum halves over several times throughout the entire time.
8. When you get the plums, leave them for another day in a ventilated place - on the windowsill or on the balcony. Cover fruit with cheesecloth to keep insects out. After a day, the plum can be removed for storage.

This is an easy natural plum recipe. But there is another one that is sure to please the sweet tooth.

This is a sweet prunes recipe that kids will love.

1. We select and prepare the fruits, as in the previous recipe. In this recipe, we remove the stone, but do not cut the plum in half. Let it stay whole.
2. We fall asleep plum with sugar in a ratio of 3: 1. That is, for three kilograms of fruit you need one kilogram of sugar.
3. Plum, unlike other fruits and berries, does not give juice well, so you will have to wait for valuable syrup. Leave the plum with sugar under a slight oppression for a day and stir the mass regularly. Be careful not to damage the fruit while doing this.
4. When the syrup appears, put the pan on the fire and bring to a boil. It is very important that as soon as the plum begins to boil, it should be turned off so that the fruits do not boil. Thoroughly stir the plums to make sure all the fruits are coated in the sugar syrup.
5. After that, the mass should cool down - at this time, the fruits are even more actively saturated with sugar composition. After cooling, fold the mass into a colander and let the plum drain. Then lay the halves of the fruit on parchment and put in the oven. It is necessary to dry the plum at a minimum temperature of about 3-4 hours. High temperatures will speed up the process, but the fruits will lose vitamins and become useless.
6. After drying, let the cream dry completely at room temperature.
7. By the way, you do not need to pour sugar syrup. It is very fragrant and tasty. It can be used for liqueurs, the syrup can be diluted with water and drunk as compote or used as a filling for pancakes.
8. Ready prunes should be dried, but quite elastic.

Such prunes can be used as a dessert or filling for pies. Sweet prunes can be added to marinades for meat - it gives dishes a delicate sour taste and fruity aroma. Leave the prunes in a bowl on the table, and the children will gladly eat them instead of sweets.

If the prunes are dry enough, they can be stored in a linen bag in a kitchen drawer. If you doubt whether prunes are well dried and expect them to be stored for a long time, freeze dried fruits in the freezer. It is better to pre-decompose the prunes into portions to make it easier to defrost.

Summer is the time for preparations, drying, jams and marinades. A good housewife will not only provide the family with natural products, but also save the family budget. After all, the cost of homemade prunes is 10 times cheaper than the dubious product that we find on store shelves. Dry prunes, make preparations - and the winter will pass for you without monetary and vitamin losses!

Video: how to cook prunes at home

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 useful properties. 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 of fresh fruits. 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 retain a much larger amount of useful substances in dried prunes.

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 to monitor the temperature regime of the 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 homemade prunes until fully cooked, 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 leaves, sprinkling dried fruits prepared for storage with a small amount of laurel.

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!

Good afternoon, my dear readers!

We have an incredible amount of plums this year. And all this in our backyard, with our dear and beloved mother - grandmother. This September, we have collected, neither less nor more, about seven 10-liter buckets of sweet and delicious plums!

Now we just enjoy it - we eat it in the quantities that are most desirable for us, which are simply not limited, we treat friends and acquaintances. There are no those in our family who do not like this fruit, so a 5-liter bucket per day goes away easily and simply))

And yet, I managed to freeze the fruits for the winter, cook some jam and cook the most useful prunes at home, the recipe of which is now in front of your eyes. In one of the following posts I will publish a recipe for a French plum dessert. Drop by!

I chose the dried prunes option. Also, you can cook and dried, which cooks faster. Only you need to store it in a sterile closed jar, preferably in the refrigerator. And dried prunes are well stored in a linen bag or paper bag at room temperature.

Cooking prunes at home

Ingredients:

• Plum - about 2 kg

Dry product yield: 900g

My cooking method:

1. My plum and free from stones

2. We lay out the fruits on a baking sheet covered with foil, which can be greased with a very thin layer of vegetable oil, which I did not do

3. Turn on the oven at 80 - 100ºС and put a baking sheet there, slightly opening the oven door

4. After about three hours, you can turn off the oven and close it until it cools down. During this time, the secreted juice will evaporate

5. Turn on the oven again with temperature = 80ºС, open the door and dry for another 8-9 hours. You can leave the dried fruit in the oven turned off overnight so that the moisture from the fruit completely evaporates.

Ready! We try it and put it in bags for storage.

If you want to receive dried plums the whole process will take you 5-6 hours. Only the oven must first be turned on at 120ºС and not opened until the juice has evaporated, then turn off the oven, as in the case of drying plums. And turn it on again at 70-80ºС, slightly open the oven door and continue the drying process.

Good luck with your cooking! I look forward to your comments.

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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 that has not been treated with any chemicals to improve the appearance? 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:

1. Sorting. When sorting through fruits, specimens with rot and various damage should be immediately excluded. Only the best fruits should be dried.
2. Cleansing. Fruits are washed under running water and dried with paper towels.

1. 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.
2. Blanching. In a liter of boiling water, dissolve 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and place the plum in this solution for 20 seconds. The amount of liquid is calculated so that the fruit is completely submerged in water. If necessary, increase the portion several times. This procedure is necessary in order to remove the wax layer from the surface. The skin from being in boiling water should crack, which will contribute to better evaporation of the liquid.
3. After blanching, the plum is washed under running water.
4. 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.

Between stages, the baking sheet is removed from the oven, the prunes are turned over and allowed to 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.

We turn on the microwave oven 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, then you can continue drying, checking the 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.

Containers with dried fruits - glass jars, plastic containers or bags - are best kept in the refrigerator. If the product turned out to be dried, then it should be stored in the freezer.

Prunes are a very useful dried fruit, which is made from plums of different varieties. It is not only commercially available for everyone, it is very easy to prepare at home. This will require a lot of fresh plums and knowledge of the features of the cooking process.

Some facts from the history of prunes

How to make prunes, mankind has known for a long time. The recipe comes from Asian countries. In the old days, the tradition of drying fruits was very common, because it was not possible to store them, for example, frozen.

For the first time, the plum tree is mentioned in writings that date back to the 6th century BC. There is an opinion that the plum tree is the result of crossing wild thorns and cherry plums. Varieties that are suitable for drying are unpretentious, therefore they grow throughout our mainland. In Europe, the plum appeared only in the 17th century.

Useful properties of prunes

Why is this dried fruit useful and why is it so widely used in cooking?

Plum, like prunes, is rich in special substances - phytonutrients, namely neochlorogenic and They have antioxidant properties.

Prunes contain fiber, due to which blood sugar levels normalize. This product is useful for the prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes. Also, dried fruit helps reduce appetite. It is included in many diets in small amounts, so it is useful to know how to make prunes.

Dried fruit lowers cholesterol levels and also protects the intestines by maintaining its healthy microflora. Reduces the risk of serious diseases such as colon cancer and hemorrhoids.

Prunes are rich in potassium, a complex of vitamins that are able to stabilize the water-salt balance and kidney function, normalize the metabolism in the body; has diuretic and choleretic properties, is used to treat anemia and beriberi. Its antibacterial function is not inferior to some medications.

How to choose a plum variety for drying correctly

Before you start harvesting dried plums, you need to find out the features of how to make prunes at home correctly and which ones are suitable for this. After all, not all fruits are suitable for harvesting this type.

The variety of fruit must be given great attention. To do this, you need the fruits of such varieties that ripen last. Such a plum will be fleshy and sweet.

If you understand varieties or have the opportunity to ask those who understand, then choose Hungarian (Italian, ordinary, Azhan, purple), Renklod, Raisins-Eric, Stanley, Cromagne and Burton.

Hungarian is best suited because its fruits are large, have a dense skin, and the flesh is elastic. The stone is easily separated from the pulp, there is little acid in it, and there is a lot of sweetness.

How to prepare a plum for drying

Now the plum needs to be prepared for the drying process, let's look at how to make prunes at home.

It is important that the fruit storage process is not delayed for more than 3 days, as ripe plums will begin to spoil and ferment.

The drain must be thoroughly rinsed. Rinse until the water runs clear.

Fruits must be sorted by size, as this determines the time of their preparation. You also need to take out the bones.

Also, before that, it is necessary to blanch the plums in a 1% soda solution. In other words, douse them with hot water and baking soda for 25-30 seconds. This is necessary so that the tissues of the plums become softer, and their cells are larger, and so that the fruits lose excess air. Next, the plum must be thoroughly rinsed again.

At the last stage, the fruits will need to be cooled. After you do all these processes, you will see small cracks on the skin. This is correct, since they will contribute to the release of water during drying, the juice will remain inside.

How to make prunes in an electric dryer

For the preparation of dried fruits, not so long ago, they came up with special equipment - an electric dryer. This appliance can be used for cooking not only prunes, but also for drying any other fruits and vegetables.

Before making prunes in an electric dryer, it is necessary to arrange the fruits on the bowls so that they do not touch or overlap each other.

Depending on the type of equipment, up to 600 grams of plums can be placed on the tray, and the dryer can be designed for different volumes, for example, 14 kg. In total, the electric dryer must be turned on for 41 hours until the prunes are completely cooked. The processing temperature will be 55 degrees Celsius.

After cooking, the finished product is easy to separate from the trays, they are well dried and ready for use. From 16 kilograms of plums, about 2.5 kilograms of prunes can be obtained.

How to make prunes in the oven

A more popular method of preparing prunes is in the oven. This does not require special equipment. And the process itself is different from how to make prunes in a dryer.

Arrange the plums on a baking sheet in a single layer. The temperature regime for this is also selected in the range of 50-55 degrees at the initial stage. The plum will have to dry for 3-4 hours.

After the first interval, you need to get a baking sheet, turn all the fruits over on the other side and let them cool down (within 4-5 hours, in order for the product to turn out to be of high quality).

The next stage will also take 3-4 hours, but the drying temperature will now be higher - 60-70 degrees. After the specified time has elapsed, the prunes must be taken out again, mixed and left to cool.

The last stage will take at least 5 hours. Prunes will need to be dried at a temperature of 90 degrees. To obtain a shiny surface at the end of drying, you can raise the temperature to 100-120 degrees.

Thus, the question of how to make prunes is resolved. The procedure is simple and does not require special knowledge, but only the availability of time and a little patience.