Home › Candy Making › Candied Cherries
Candied Cherries
Candied cherries, as everyone knows, are greatly in demand as bonbons or in the decoration of fancy desserts. That they are expensive as well, is equally well known. That they can be successfully imitated in taste and appearance at about a tenth of the cost, is not so generally known, but they may be. Use Cape Cod cranberries for this purpose, measuring out half as much sugar as cranberries, and half as much water as sugar. Put the berries in a deep porcelain kettle, sprinkle the sugar on top like a crust, and pour the water slowly on top of the sugar. Cook very slowly. When the berries break into a boil, cover just a few moments, watching closely that the skin does not commence to burst. Then uncover and cook until tender. Take out with a skimmer and spread on oil plates to dry.
A thrift substitution: cranberries stand in for imported glacé cherries. The method is a slow, gentle candying in a heavy syrup, and the whole thing turns on not letting the skins burst.
- The proportionsEverything is measured by volume, not weight: half as much sugar as cranberries, half as much water as sugar. For a standard 12 oz bag of cranberries (about 3 cups), that is 1 1/2 cups sugar and 3/4 cup water.
- Porcelain kettleMeans a porcelain-enamelled iron pot, i.e. a nonreactive pan. Enamelled cast iron or stainless steel both work; the point is to keep the acid off bare iron, which would dull the colour and taste metallic.
- The hinge: burst skinsOnce a cranberry splits it releases pectin and collapses into sauce, and you have jam rather than candied fruit. Keep the syrup at a bare simmer with the surface barely moving; the recipe's own instruction is to uncover as soon as the skins look like bursting, then carry on gently until tender.
- Why the sugar goes on topLayering sugar over the fruit and pouring the water gently over that presumably lets the syrup form around the berries without stirring or agitation. The recipe never mentions stirring at all; tilt and swirl the pan if you must.
- "Oil plates"Lightly oiled plates, so the sticky fruit lifts off cleanly. Parchment or a silicone mat does the same job and is easier to handle.
- Drying takes days, not hoursThe book gives no drying time. Spread the berries in a single layer and leave them somewhere warm and dry for one to three days, turning once, until tacky rather than wet. A dehydrator or an oven at its lowest setting with the door ajar speeds this considerably.
- Finishing and storageRolling the dried berries in granulated or superfine sugar keeps them from sticking together and gives the frosted look of commercial candied fruit. Store airtight; these hold weeks at room temperature but soften in humidity, so refrigerate in damp weather.
- Yield and useA 12 oz bag gives roughly 2 cups of candied fruit. They are tarter than glacé cherries and will read as cranberry in a fruitcake or on a decorated dessert, which is not a flaw so much as a different sweet.
- Don't waste the syrupWhat is left in the pan is a bright cranberry syrup. Strain and keep it for drinks, glazing a ham, or spooning over pudding.
Candied and glac rtrtrade, and the fancy French and Italian fruits sold by confectioners were priced accordingly, hence the writer's opening appeal to what everyone knows about their cost. Cape Cod cranberries, by contrast, were cheap and abundant: commercial bog cultivation in southeastern Massachusetts had grown through the second half of the nineteenth century into a substantial industry, and the berries shipped nationally in barrels each autumn. Substituting one for the other is the kind of frankly stated imitation that turn-of-the-century American household books did well, alongside mock turtle soup and mock mince pie, where the aim was not deception at the table so much as getting the visual and textural effect of an expensive ingredient at a fraction of the price. A recipe of this kind also reflects how much confectionery was still made at home, before boxed chocolates and packaged candied peel became routine grocery purchases.