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Dried Raspberries
Black raspberries or the purple Columbian berry are the best for this purpose. They should not be overripe.
The fruit should be free from dust and gathered by clean hands, so that it need not be washed before drying.
Look over carefully and spread in layers, three berries deep, on earthen plates or granite tins.
Set in the oven or on the back of the stove until brought to a scalding-point, then at once remove to a place that is simply warm enough to keep the moisture slowly evaporating, but where there is no possible danger of burning.
Stir occasionally with a spoon. In twelve hours the fruit should be reduced to one third its original bulk, when three plates may be put together, giving room for a fresh supply. It will take from thirty-six to forty-eight hours to remove all the moisture. Then the berries will be ready to pack away. At the last, set the berries into the oven and again bring to the scalding-point, to insure freedom from insects. In doing this, watch constantly, lest the berries burn.
Pack the fruit in small pails with tight covers, or baking-powder cans may be used.
Before putting on the cover, spread over the top as many thicknesses of clean paper as will shut down with the cover, the edge showing below the cover when it is on firmly, so as to make it moth-proof.
In a day or two take off the cover; if any moisture appears on the paper or sides of the pail, heat enough to remove it and put on a dry paper. The dishes may be set in any dry place. Fruit dried in this way will keep for years; and, although an old-fashioned way, it is an agreeable change from ordinary canned and preserved fruits. Before using carefully wash in lukewarm water; stew for a long time in plenty of water; add sugar just before serving.
This is oven-and-stovetop drying from the era before electric dehydrators, and the method translates almost directly. The one thing to get right is heat control: the initial scald sets the fruit and kills surface insects, and everything after that is slow evaporation, not baking.
- Scalding-pointThis means the fruit is heated just until it steams and the juice trembles at the surface, short of a simmer. The goal is to soften the skins and start the juices, not to cook the berries to jam.
- The drying temperature"Simply warm enough" translates to roughly 125-140F. A modern oven set at 170F with the door propped a couple of inches on a wooden spoon works, as does any dehydrator on its fruit setting. Too much heat case-hardens the outsides, sealing moisture inside.
- Granite tinsGranite ware is speckled enamel over steel, not stone. Any non-reactive tray works: enamel, stainless, or parchment-lined sheet pans. Avoid bare aluminium and cast iron, which react with the fruit acid.
- Three berries deepTake this literally; a deeper bed will not dry evenly, and the stated 36-48 hours assumes this shallow bed and the gentle heat. In a dehydrator with good airflow it will take considerably less time.
- When it is dry enoughThe reduction to one third the original bulk is a fair guide, but test by squeezing a handful of cooled berries: they should be leathery and springy, and no juice or stickiness should show. Any tackiness means more time.
- The final heat treatmentThe second trip to the oven is a pasteurising step against insect eggs, and it is worth keeping. An alternative used today is to freeze the packed fruit for 48 hours, which accomplishes the same thing without risk of scorching.
- Storage and conditioningThe paper-under-the-lid trick was moth-proofing; glass jars with sealed lids do the job better. The instruction to check for moisture after a day or two is what modern drying manuals call conditioning: shake the jar daily for a week, and if any condensation appears, return the fruit to low heat. Store in the dark, and expect good quality for a year rather than "years."
- Using themDried black raspberries are dense and seedy, so the "long stewing" is not an exaggeration; soak first, then simmer at length with plenty of water. Adding sugar only at the end keeps the skins from toughening.
Drying was the oldest and cheapest way to hold soft fruit through winter, and by the time this book was written it already read as a survival from an earlier household economy — the author says as much, calling it "an old-fashioned way." Glass jars, cheap sugar and the reliable hot-water-bath method had, by some point around the turn of the century, made canning and preserving the default, and dried berries were kept on partly for variety and partly because they took no sugar and no jars. The two varieties named are telling: black raspberries and the Columbian, a purple raspberry raised from a red raspberry crossed with a blackcap raspberry, both firmer and drier-fleshed than red raspberries and so far better suited to drying without collapsing. The insistence that the fruit be picked by clean hands and never washed reflects a real constraint rather than fussiness — wet berries will not dry at the low temperatures a kitchen stove could hold, and once mould takes hold in a slow-drying tray the whole batch is lost.