It is better to take a ripe plum, but with dense pulp (the Hungarian variety is ideal, although I have successfully made prunes from large, dense round plums of an unknown variety).

• Plums need to be washed, dried and seeds removed. In this case, we do not divide into halves, we prepare whole fruits.
  
• Further, our task is to fill the plums with sugar and get more juice. If in the case of cherries, I did not know where to put the juice, then plum juice gives reluctantly. The first time I covered everything with sugar, and put oppression. After a day, sugar still had a white slide on the surface of the sink.
    The second time, I poured sugar in the middle of each plum, laid it in layers in a pan, and poured sugar in each layer. It didn’t take much time (after removing the seeds from the cherry, a little scared me :)), but it gave a good result.
  In addition, I periodically mixed the contents of the pan. As a result, juice was allocated, which was enough to make syrup.
• We put the pan on medium heat and heat to a boil.
  Gently mix the plum, make sure that all the fruits “pass” the syrup.
  Bring to a boil, but do not boil, while the plum will change color just like in the photo.
  Turn off the stove and hold the drain until it cools.
• We strain the plums from the syrup (we use a colander or sieve) and put it in one layer on a cloth or thick paper for drying.
  
• Next, put the future prune on a sheet covered with parchment, and send it to the ajar oven. The temperature is 40-60 degrees. The presence of a special dryer for vegetables and fruits would greatly simplify the process, but I have not yet acquired such an assistant. So while we do prunes in the oven at home. You can, of course, dry your prunes outdoors, but then the cooking time is much longer. I chose the best regimen for myself: prunes dry in the oven for 3-4 hours, and then I bring it to the desired condition on the windowsill for another 24-36 hours. (It all depends on the weather).
  
  
• I do not recommend increasing the temperature in the oven to speed up the process - you will lose in quality. Anyway, this will not be dried prunes.
• I determine the readiness of prunes “by eye”; it should not be wet, but elastic and dense.
• I pack ready-made homemade prunes in paper bags and store them in the freezer.
  I read that it can be stored at room temperature or in the refrigerator, but make sure. There was a sad experience in storing purchased prunes in the refrigerator. As a result, after a week he became moldy. I had to throw it all away. Therefore, with my own, home, “cherished and suffered” I do not risk :)
• Here he turned out to be dried prunes at home, partially cooked with the help of an oven. Be sure to try, feel the difference with a purchased product of dubious origin or sky-high price. After that, home-made dried fruits - prunes, plums, and even cherries and strawberries - are exactly written on your menu. (I read a lot about berries, but I haven’t tried to do it myself, I want to take a chance this year). Join and enjoy a healthy appetite.

Prunes on the shelves of grocery stores look beautiful and brilliant. But often there is no naturalness behind this brilliance. To give dried fruits a similar look, an unscrupulous producer 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, moreover, it costs a lot. Therefore, good housewives have long learned how to cook prunes on their own. Indeed, in the summer in the harvest year, plum can be bought very cheaply. Cooking does not take much time and effort. Therefore, with very little effort, you can provide yourself and your family with a useful and tasty product for the whole winter.

Prunes are very beneficial for the human body. It is actively used in the fight against constipation and other gastrointestinal diseases. Prunes cleanse the intestines efficiently but gently. In addition, after drying, prunes retain all the nutrients 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?

The recipe for natural prunes

This recipe is nothing more, just a plum. Such prunes are suitable for people who adhere to the rules of a healthy diet. Let's start cooking a natural treat.

1. Prunes are best dried from the plum variety Vengerka. 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 round.
2. Fruits for drying should be ripe, but moderately hard and fleshy. If you buy plums, make sure that the flesh is easily separated from the bone. For drying, choose only strong fruits without wormholes. Sluggish and shriveled plums should be set aside.
3. Some try to get rid of a whitish coating on the surface of the fruit. In order for the plum to persist 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 of 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 stones. Small plums can be left with a bone, but in winter you will have to be very careful not to spoil the tooth on an undetected bone.
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 resilient and not cooked.
7. After that, put the halves on a baking sheet in one layer and dry for 2-3 hours at a temperature of 60-80 degrees. In this case, open the oven so as not to dry the product. Turn the drain halves several times over 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 the fruit with gauze to protect against insects. After a day, the sink can be stored.

This is a simple recipe for making natural plums. But there is one more that sweet tooth is sure to enjoy.

This is a recipe for sweet prunes, from which children will be delighted.

1. We select and prepare the fruits, as in the previous recipe. In this recipe we remove the bone, but the drain in half is not cut. Let it remain intact.
2. We fill the plum sugar with a ratio of 3: 1. That is, for three kilograms of fruit you will need one kilogram of sugar.
3. Plum, unlike other fruits and berries, does not give juice well, so valuable syrup will have to wait. Leave the sugar plum under a small oppression for a day and stir the mass regularly. Be careful not to damage the fruit.
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 cook. Stir the plum thoroughly to make sure all the fruits are coated with sugar syrup.
5. After this, the mass should cool - at this time, the fruits are even more actively saturated with the sugar composition. After cooling, discard the mass in a colander and let the drain drain. Then put the halves of the fruit on the parchment and put in the oven. Plum should be dried at a minimum temperature of about 3-4 hours. High temperature 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 don’t need to pour sugar syrup. It is very fragrant and delicious. It can be used for liquors, the syrup can be diluted with water and drunk as a 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 meat marinades - it gives dishes a delicate sour taste and fruity aroma. Leave the prunes in a vase on the table, and the children will gladly eat it instead of sweets.

If the prunes are sufficiently dried, they can be stored in a canvas bag in the kitchen drawer. If you are in doubt whether the prunes are well-dried and are expected to be stored for a long time, freeze dried fruits in the freezer. It is better to pre-arrange the prunes in portions, so that it is more convenient to defrost.

Summer is a time for harvesting, drying, jam and preparing 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 the prunes, make preparations - and the winter will pass for you without monetary and vitamin losses!

Video: how to cook prunes at home

Dried plums, or, in other words, prunes, are a very healthy treat. But are you 100% sure that you are buying a quality product, not processed, to improve the appearance, with any chemicals? I think that no one can answer this question unequivocally. Today we propose to consider ways to dry the sink yourself at home. Such a product will certainly be of the highest standard, since the entire cooking process will be personally controlled by you.

You can dry any sort of plums, but the fruits will be firm and firm to the touch. In this case, the product must be completely ripened.

The preparatory phase consists of several steps:

1. Sorting. Going through fruits, you should immediately exclude specimens with rot and various damage. Only the best fruits should go to the dryer.
2. Cleansing. Fruits are washed under running water and wiped with paper towels.

1. Bone removal. Plum is cut in half and the core is taken out. This completes the preparation of the drains for seedless drying. You can proceed directly to dehydration. If you plan to dry prunes with a bone, then skip this stage and perform all the other steps.
2. Blanching In a liter of boiling water, 1 teaspoon of baking soda is dissolved, and plum is placed 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 serving 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.
3. After blanching, the drain is washed under running water.
4. In conclusion, the fruits are thoroughly dried with paper towels.

All plum drying methods

In the sun

The prepared plum is laid out on lattices or in well-ventilated boxes, and carried out in the sun. Every evening, containers of fruit are brought into the room and put back only the next day, not earlier than the time the dew comes down.

The total drying time is from 4 to 6 days. It depends on weather conditions and the size of the fruit.

After the drying is completed, dried fruits must be finally dried in the shade. This will take about 3 to 4 days.

In the oven

To keep the pan clean, it is covered with baking paper. Drying can also be done on special grills. 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 a temperature of + 50ºС;
• 6 hours at a temperature of + 70ºС;
• until the product is ready at a temperature of + 75 ... + 80ºС.

Between stages, the pan 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 the 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 with the cut up.

The temperature regime for the entire drying time will vary:

• Stage 1: dry for 4 hours at a temperature of + 50 ... + 55ºС. Swap trays and flip pieces.
• Stage 2: dry 4-6 hours at a temperature of + 60ºС. We change the trays, turn the plums.
• Stage 3: until the product is ready, about 4-6 hours at a temperature of + 75 ... + 80ºС.

Watch the video from the Ezidri Master channel - Drying the sink

In the microwave

For drying the express method in the microwave, you need to use only solid fruits, otherwise the plum will turn into porridge.

So, we take out the seeds from the fruit and put them in a flat bowl, covered with a paper towel. Slices need to be put with a slice up. Cover the slices with a paper napkin.

Turn on the microwave oven at medium power for 3 minutes. At the end of this time, we remove the napkin, and the products are again placed 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 readiness every 60 seconds.

How to store prunes

Ready-made dried fruits must be firm 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 - are best kept in the refrigerator. If the product is dried, it should be stored in the freezer.

Many people like prunes, which can be bought all year round in the market. It is a very useful product and has been used in cooking for centuries. Unfortunately, not everyone decides to cook it at home, but this method makes it even more filled with vitamins.

When for the first time a person came up with the idea of ​​drying a finished plum in the sun, no one can reliably say, but the fact that this was done so many years ago is a fact. The historical documents indicate the characteristics of prunes, and they are dated back to the VI century BC.

Everyone knows that sweet plums are used to make seals - prunes. To do this, it is washed and dried in the sun. If weather conditions can not provide a normal process, this can be done in the stove or oven. When a stove is used, prunes become especially tastier, with a better aroma, thanks in large part to smoldering wood.

Unfortunately for consumers, not all manufacturers adhere to the correct technology for preparing prunes. Today, it is possible to achieve the maximum possible result with the help of liquid smoke and other chemicals. That is why it is recommended to cook a fresh product at home, so that year-round there is prunes of our own production.

Delicious prunes are always obtained from good ripe fruits. It is believed that a special sweetness and fleshiness is in those fruits that are sung the very last. Among the most common varieties are Wenger, Kroman, Naroch, Stanley and others.

Useful qualities of this product are its content:

• Potassium;
• Pectin;
• Vitamins A, C, B, P;
• Calcium;
• Phosphorus;
• Iron;
• Sucrose, fructose and glucose;
• Citric, salicylic and malic acid.

All of them have a positive effect on human health and its general condition.

To begin with, you must definitely prepare a plum, so that in the end you get a quality product. Choosing the right fresh fruit is very important - they must be ripe, you can even overripe.

They require thorough washing and pitting. Although they can not be removed (after all, even on the market you can buy prunes both with seeds and without stones). It is believed that their preservation in the sink leaves in it all the beneficial substances.

Already peeled fruits are blanched in a soda solution (temperature - 90 degrees) for about half a minute. At the same time, 10 grams of water accounts for 100 grams of soda. When the blanching is over, the drain is washed well and dried. This should happen in the oven, however, the process requires special supervision so that the prunes turn out to be tasty and all useful properties remain in it.

To obtain a quality product, you should carefully disassemble each stage of preparation:

• Washed plums are laid out on a baking sheet and sent to the oven for 4 hours at a temperature of 50 degrees;
• After draining the plums, they must be gently mixed so that they do not deteriorate, because they are very hot. When they have cooled, they must again be dried in the oven for 5 hours. The temperature should already be at 70 degrees;
• The plums cool again and undergo drying in the oven already at a 90-degree temperature for about 4 hours.

In order for prunes to have a smooth glossy surface, no additional chemicals are needed. To do this, shortly before the end of cooking, make the temperature in the oven at 120 degrees. This leads to caramelization of the fruit, which makes the peel glossy.

For long-term storage, dried fruits are packaged in paper bags and wooden crates. If there is only glass containers, the prunes should be completely dry. Sometimes bay leaves are used in banks for the same result.

If the plum is large enough, then it is better to remove the seeds. If it is small or medium in size, it is recommended to get rid of them.

A prune yield of 1 kg is obtained after drying 4.5 kg of fresh fruit.

On the baking sheet, it is better to spread the plums with the cut up.

The drying process usually takes about 12 hours, and between each step you need to take a break of 5 hours.

The resulting product at the same time is soft and elastic so that pressing does not cause the release of juice.

Although cooking prunes at home takes a lot of time, the result is worth it. Indeed, the hostess is sure that it does not contain chemistry, it is of high quality and will not bring harm to humans.

Gleaming with glossy sides, the prune lying on the shelves of stores is calling for it to be bought sooner and, of course, eaten. 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, the “sparkling” prune almost completely lost its 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. On how to make prunes with our own hands, we, together with http://obliznis.ru/, will now advise you.

How to make prunes at home

Naturally, first of all, we will be engaged in the selection and preparatory processing of fresh fruits. For the process of preparing dried prune fruits, we need to pick up very ripe, even better overripe, plum fruits.

The selected fruits, of course, are first thoroughly washed and, if desired, we remove the seeds. It should be noted that prunes can be made at home, both seedless and with seeds. True, leaving a seemingly unnecessary seed, we will save much more useful substances in dried prunes.

After blanching, we immediately rinse our plums with hot water and proceed to the process of drying the prunes.

We will certainly dry our prepared plum fruits in the oven! Just to monitor the temperature of the process, we will be very careful to get our prunes not only tasty, but also healthy.

Since the procedure of 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 spread the plums on a baking sheet and, putting it in a preheated oven to 50 degrees, we dry the fruits for 3-4 hours.

Stage Two

We take out a baking sheet from the oven. Mix 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 for another 5 hours.

Stage Three

Having removed the baking sheet from the oven, we repeat the previously performed actions (mix and cool). We bring the temperature in the oven to 90 degrees and, having placed a baking sheet in it, dry our homemade prunes until fully cooked, spending another 4 hours.

That's all our advice on how to make prunes at home.

to obtain a shiny surface of dried fruits, it is completely optional to process them with something. If, shortly before the drying of the fruits in the oven is completed, the temperature is increased to 120 degrees, then the sugar emerging from 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 him with the necessary conditions for storage. You need to store cooked prunes, either by packing them in paper bags, or by putting them in wooden boxes. You can, of course, preserve dried fruits in a closed glass container, but for this, prunes must be 100% dry. Some housewives use bay leaves, pouring a small amount of laurel prepared for storage dried fruits.

You can, of course, having rid yourself of unnecessary trouble, purchase prunes at the bazaar or in the store, but if you know how to make prunes at home, why expose yourself and your loved ones to possible danger. However, decide for yourself!