All of us, without exception, constantly buy dried fruits on the market - raisins, dried apricots, prunes, figs. Undoubtedly, it is very convenient, fast and almost always available, because there are departments with dried fruits in every supermarket. The quality and price of dried fruits are not always true for certain parameters, but it also happens that after buying a handful of two raisins or dried apricots, even in the refrigerator they are covered with mold, thereby indicating a violation of production drying technology ...

And you do not want to try to make one of the most popular dried fruits - prunes at home? The simplest process that will amaze the result, because homemade prunes can not be compared with the store counterpart! It has a deep fruity taste, an amazing plum aroma and excellent density. In addition, dried prunes at home are free from harmful additives and wax, which process dried fruit in industrial dryers for longer storage. A recipe with a photo of prunes made at home, which fearlessly can be eaten by everyone without exception - already on our website!

To make prunes in the oven you will need (yield - 1.5 kg):

• fresh plum “Vengerka” - 2 kg
• sugar - 200-250 g

How to make prunes at home - a simple recipe:

Plum varieties "Vengerka" take a ripe, non-acidic, but always dense. You can try other varieties, which also have a sweet elastic flesh, but "Hungarian" will still be ideal for making prunes at home. In such a drain, the bone separates well, which is what we need! We wash the plum, separate the tails, leaves and all other unnecessary.

Carefully cut the groove on one side on each drain so that you can remove the bone without dividing the drain into two halves. You should get these “shells” like this.

Pour a teaspoon (or how much) of sugar into each plum-shell. We take the pan and with the first layer on the bottom we lay all the plums filled with sugar.

In the same way, fill the pan to the top, sprinkle a little sugar on top. Leave for a day. Periodically shake the pan so that the resulting syrup dissolves the sugar as much as possible.

After a day, sugar and plum juice form a liquid syrup. It will not be too much, it will not cover the plum completely, but we do not need this.

Put the plum and syrup on a small fire and bring to a boil. We do not boil the plum, only mix a couple of times in hot syrup and immediately remove from the heat after the first signs of active boiling appear. The fruits will only warm up and slightly change their shade from blue-black to reddish-plum. We discard the plum in a colander and separate the syrup from it.

Now we take a baking sheet, cover it with parchment, spread the heated plum in rows, leaving a little space between it.

We begin to languish. The drying process will be carried out in the oven, so if you have a home kitchen electric dryer, you can use it according to the instructions. We heat the oven to 60-70 degrees and place the baking sheet in the middle position, opening the door and fixing a small crack with a wooden spatula. The time for preparing prunes at home in the oven individually depends on the size and type of plum, on average from 4 to 8 hours.

In the process, the drain must be turned to the other side so that it is dried evenly from all sides. Determine the readiness of a plum by such signs: it should not be wet, but become elastic and dense.

When the plum dries enough - soak it for 2-3 days in the room, on the kitchen windowsill or on the sunny balcony for the final result.

Prunes at home ready!

Now it can be used for its intended purpose - to use it just like that as a healthy snack, add it to cereals, desserts and pastries.

Enjoy your meal!

In order to have dishes complemented by piquant on your table, it is not necessary to purchase this one in the distribution network, especially since it costs a lot. You can easily cook prunes with your own hands at home. And if you consider that now, as a rule, it is almost impossible to find a quality product that has not been processed with various hazards for long-term storage and presentable appearance, then the motivation for self-cooking is significantly increased.

If you are ready to start harvesting, then our following recommendations will help you to cope with the task perfectly, and as a result you will get a very tasty and without a doubt useful product.

Cooking prunes at home

To get a truly delicious and high-quality homemade prune, we select for this purpose the ripe fruits of plums, which very easily part with the seeds, without damaging the internal flesh.

Wash the selected fruits carefully and extract the seeds. Then we prepare a solution for blanching. To do this, dissolve one hundred grams of baking soda in ten liters of water and heat it to a temperature of ninety degrees.

The prepared plums are immersed in the resulting soda mixture and aged for twenty to thirty seconds. We immediately rinse the fruits with hot water, let them drain well, and lay them on a baking sheet, which is 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 stand for three to four hours. Then we allow the fruits to cool completely by pre-mixing them, and again determine in the oven, now already preheated to seventy degrees. After five hours of drying, remove the pan, mix and cool. At the final third stage, place the cream in an oven preheated to ninety degrees and dry for another four hours. At each stage of drying, the oven door should be slightly open.

If you did everything right, then at the end of all the actions you should get a delicious homemade prune as a result. If desired, you can give the dried fruit a natural shine. To do this, at the end of the last stage, increase the temperature to one hundred and twenty degrees and stand for several minutes. In this case, the sugar contained in the fruit comes to the surface and caramelizes, thereby giving a glossy shine.

Owners of an electric dryer can easily prepare homemade prunes with its help.

How to make prune 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 Vengerka variety. They are quite meaty, and are great for this purpose to taste.

So, the plums are washed, if desired, they are spared the seeds. Now we need to, as in the traditional version, blanch the fruits. To do this, dip them for twenty seconds in 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 it drain, and place the driers on the pallets of the dryer not very tightly to each other.

The temperature regime of the dryer should be about the same as when drying in the oven and also include several stages. Initially, dry at fifty degrees for about four hours. Then we increase the temperature to sixty degrees and stand for five hours. Still the same or slightly more time will be required for drying at seventy degrees. After each drying step, drain pallets must be removed for approximately five hours to cool and wind.

Perhaps your plums will turn out to be more or less juicy and the drying time will need more or less, respectively. We periodically check the readiness of prunes and determine the time of its preparation at home independently.

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 it on top with paper and store it in a cool place.

Right make prune  at home - this means providing yourself a large amount of vitamins for the whole winter. Prune is not only a delicious product, it is also incredibly useful for our health.  But its use is doubtful when you buy it on the shelves of the store, where it looks like artificial. It is clear that the dried fruit grated with all kinds of nitrates and glycerin still beckons to buy it, but you can just as well gnaw on a plastic toy sprinkled with sugar. It will be best if you make prunes yourself, at home.  This ensures that you end up with a healthy and natural product.

The benefits of prunes are undeniable: it contains a large set of B vitamins, as well as A, C, PP and E.  In addition, a large number of these products are included. iron, potassium, calcium, sodium  and many other trace elements.

Very interesting is the fact that prunes practically do not lose the beneficial properties that plums had. And to store such dried fruits is very simple and they slowly deteriorate.

If you include prunes in your daily diet, your digestive tract will be happy because this product contains substances that help improve the digestibility of beneficial elements and normalize the digestive system.

Prunes are often added to the menu of many popular diets, as they can quickly and easily saturate the body, while providing it with a minimal set of calories. That is why this product will be especially useful for those who carefully monitor their figure.

This dried fruit is quite strong. antiseptic and antibacterial properties: with it, you can help the body cope with viruses and pathogenic bacteria that penetrate it and develop diseases. Prunes help the immune system fight off the harmful substances that enter our environment. With this, you can protect your body, it will be especially useful in the winter season, when all kinds of viruses strive to stick to a person.

The use of prunes is not recommended for those who are obese and have diabetes.  You should also use this product with caution in pregnant and lactating women. Otherwise, prunes cannot cause serious harm if not abused.

Making prunes

In order to properly and usefully make prunes at home, first you need to pick the fruits that will be processed. The most ripe plums, even slightly overripe, are perfect for prunes.  But by no means rotten! The collected fruits must be washed thoroughly so that there is no upset stomach, and get rid of the bones. You can not do this, but eating whole prunes without picking out the seeds is much more pleasant.  Then you need to take 10 liters of water, bring to a boil and dissolve 100 grams of soda. After that, use a colander to lower the plums into this solution, and after 30 seconds, take it out.

Now rinse the plums with warm water, and then they need to be dried. This must be done using the oven.  We warm it to a temperature of 50 degrees, after which we take a baking sheet and put our fruits on it. Then we send them to the oven and wait about three hours. After that, remove the plums from the oven, let them cool and mix well.

When the plums have cooled, turn on the oven again, only this time it will need to be heated to a temperature of 70 degrees.  Again we send the plums to dry and go about our business for about five hours.

We take out the plums again, cool, mix, and return to the oven, which has already been heated to 90 degrees. We wait four hours, take out a baking sheet with prepared prunes from the oven, let it cool and enjoy an unsurpassed taste.

Store prunes in a dry, dark place, after having unpacked them in sachets. And if you want to make it look glossy, then at the last stage of drying the drain, about 10 minutes before the end of the process, increase the temperature in the oven to 120 degrees. In this case, the plums will let the juice, which under the influence of temperature will turn into caramel, cover your prunes and give it a very beautiful look.

Good afternoon, my dear readers!

We have an incredible amount of plum this year. And all this on our personal plot, at the dear and beloved of our mother - grandmother. This September we collected, not less, not much, about seven 10-liter buckets of sweet and delicious plums!

Now we just enjoy it - we eat it in the quantities we want the most, which are simply unlimited, treat friends and acquaintances. Our family does not have those who do not like this fruit, so a 5-liter bucket per day leaves easily and simply))

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

I chose the option of dried prunes. You can also cook jerky, 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

Dried product yield:   900g

My cooking method:

1. Drain 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 released juice evaporates

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 off at night so that the moisture from the fruit completely evaporates

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

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

I wish you success in cooking! Waiting for your comments.

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Dried prunes are a tasty and healthy dried fruit that is sold in stores all year round. Cost, and the quality of the goods do not always suit the buyer. Therefore, for lovers of prunes there is great news - plums can be prepared in advance and then used to prepare various dishes.

  How to dry prunes - which plums are suitable

To get a very tasty and healthy prune, you need to choose the right plum for drying. Namely, a ripe “Hungarian” is suitable, the variety can be called “Hungarian” or “Italian Hungarian”. This plum variety has a very dense skin and pulp. Just what you need for drying. In addition, Vengerka has more sugar than other types of plums and not much acid. The ideal variety is not only for drying, but also for workpieces for the winter, because the bone is easy to separate without damage. By the way, any sort of "Hungarian" is suitable for drying. If you come across a variety of "Vengerka Violet" or "Azhanskaya", feel free to proceed to the preparations.

  How to Dry Prunes - Preparing Plums

It is known that for harvesting for the winter, elastic, ripe and undamaged fruits are suitable. The plum will have to be plucked from the branches, and not a coward, in order to collect plums that have fallen to the ground. If no other option is provided, then you can trot the branch somewhere in the afternoon. Overripe plums will fall to the ground (they can be used for jams and preserves), rotten (will have to be thrown away) and unripe. In the morning, a favorable period for the collection of ripened fruits is just beginning.

Collected plums should be folded into a basket with holes, left in a well-ventilated area for 3 days.

Sorting: ripe and undamaged plums are selected, crushed, rotten and spoiled ones are thrown out. Leaves and stalks must be removed, seeds - carefully removed. Arrange the plums in size so that the halves are approximately the same size.

  How to dry prunes

Plum can be dried both in the oven and in a special electric dryer. Not every housewife has such a device, but an oven is installed in every apartment or house. Therefore, the easiest way to learn how to dry plums in the oven.

How to do it right:

• to get 1 kg of dry finished product, you need to prepare about 4.5 freshly picked plums;
• to speed up the drying process, plums can be blanched beforehand: immersed in boiling water with soda (15 g per 1 liter of liquid) literally for 30 seconds, quickly removed, immediately rinse thoroughly in cold water. To do this, you need to prepare a pan with cold water and put next to the stove;
• if you did everything right, then the result of the work will appear immediately: the skin at the sink will become a fine mesh. Just what you need in order to get rid of excess moisture during drying;
• if the first pancake turned out to be lumpy and large cracks appeared on the surface of the drain or, in general, the “skin peeled off”, this means that it is necessary to reduce the blanching time and keep the plums in boiling water for 20 seconds instead of 30 seconds;
• after the blanching is done, the plums can be dried. This can be done as follows: prepare baking sheets for drying in the oven, lay baking paper, lay the plums in 1 layer so that the plum “looks” with the cut up;
• drying temperature 45 degrees, duration - 3 hours. You will notice that the skin begins to gradually wrinkle. Just after 3-4 hours of draining, you can increase the temperature and set the oven timer to 80 degrees (this is the maximum), dry for 10 minutes. Then the oven must be turned off and the plums left for 5 hours, until completely cooled;
• then repeat the action again and so on for 3 days. The last stage of drying is an excerpt of 2-3 minutes in the oven at maximum (temperature of 100 degrees). This is necessary so that sugar is released and caramelized at high temperature.

Ready prunes are soft and elastic, and if pressed down, the juice should not stand out.