How to freeze cherries for the winter

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-12 17:37

Unlike cherries, cherries are sweeter and healthier. Such a berry can be bought in winter, albeit at a high price. Therefore, it is better to collect cherries in your garden or buy them in the market during the season and freeze them for the winter. We will tell you how to do this further.

Choosing berries

Before freezing cherries at home for the winter, you need to choose it correctly. If you do not have your own garden, then it is better to buy berries at farmers' markets. The cherry there is fresh, unlike the one that has been in supermarket boxes for a long time and loses not only its appearance, but also vitamins.

Plus, these berries are treated with chemicals so that they do not deteriorate during transportation, which also does not make them healthy. The cherry fruit should be firm and not watery. Before buying, it is worth trying one berry to taste, which should be bright, sweet with a slight sourness.

As for the color, everyone knows that cherries can be dark red, pink, yellow and yellow-red. So for the winter you can even freeze an assortment of berries of different colors.

Preparing cherries for freezing

Before freezing, the berries need to be sorted out in order to get rid of cracked, crumpled fruits and those that are already rotten. If uninvited guests live in the berries, then it's very easy to drive them out:

• dissolve 500 g of salt in 1 liter of water at room temperature;
• We put cherries in a salty solution and just wait 30 minutes.

During this time, the worms themselves will leave their "home", you just have to rinse the berries and be sure to dry them on a towel. Otherwise, the remaining water on the fruits will turn into ice.

Is it possible to freeze yellow cherries

For freezing, you can use any varieties of cherries, but many doubt whether it is possible to freeze yellow berries. Of course, for winter harvesting, you should choose a berry with an elastic skin. In yellow cherries, it is too thin and bursts after defrosting.

Therefore, for freezing, the best choice would be yellow-pink cherries. Yes, you can freeze the yellow one, but after that it will only work for compotes. It is also worth noting that after freezing, yellow fruits acquire an unattractive brown color.

Freeze cherries with seeds

You can freeze cherries in the freezer for the winter right with the seeds. This is the easiest way to preserve fruit and save time. Such berries can be used for compotes, for jam, for decorating desserts. Any varieties of sweet cherries are suitable for freezing, but not early ones, since the ratio of juice and pulp in fruits is disproportionate.

Preparation:

Put the prepared cherries in one layer on a tray or baking sheet. We try to lay the fruits so that they do not come into contact with each other, otherwise they may stick together during the freezing process

• We send the berries to the freezer, turn on the "Fast freeze" mode and wait 2-3 hours.
• After we take out the frozen cherries, we pack them in bags (you can additionally put them in a container) and return them back to the freezer.
• Cherries should not be packed in large portions; it is better to put in the bag as much as needed at one time of use.

Seedless

If you are using frozen cherries as a filling for pies, dumplings or pies, then it is best to freeze them in the refrigerator for the winter without pits. Of course, this method is more laborious, but it will be even more difficult to extract seeds from thawed berries.

Preparation:

• We wash the berries and leave them in a colander so that excess liquid is drained from them.
• Break the toothpick in half and get the bones through the stalk.

• We spread the cherries on a flat plate or tray, send them to the freezer for several hours.
• After the berries are laid out in bags or put in a container, stored at low temperatures.

In frozen form, seedless berries do not look very nice, but after defrosting they can be immediately used for their intended purpose. You can also remove the seeds with a pin or using a garlic press. Not all housewives know that such a device has a pointed part designed to remove stones.

With sugar

You can freeze cherries with sugar, and there are even 2 ways. We will tell you how to preserve the fruits for the winter.

Ingredients for the first method:

• 1 kg of cherries;
• 100-200 g of sugar.

Preparation:

1. We sort out the cherries, rinse and dry well.
2. After that, in any convenient way, we extract the seeds from the fruit.
3. Put the berries in a container, sprinkle each layer with sugar.
4. We close the lid and send it to the freezer for freezing. We store frozen cherries in containers.

For the second way:

• 1 kg of cherries;
• 500 g of sugar.

Preparation:

1. We wash the berries first, if necessary, keep them in a salty solution. Then we dry and take out the seeds from the fruits.
2. Using a blender, we interrupt the berries in mashed potatoes, you can not chop much so that pieces of pulp remain in the workpiece.
3. Sprinkle the chopped cherries with sugar, mix and, so that it blooms, leave the berry mixture for an hour.
4. We cover the container with cling film so that the edges hang down on all sides of the plastic container.
5. We shift the grated cherries with sugar and send them to the freezer.
6. After 2-3 hours, we take out the container, pull it by the edges of the film and easily remove the briquette with frozen berries.
7. After the edge of the film, wrap and store the briquette in the freezer.
8. If you store frozen cherries at temperatures from -18 to -20 ° C, then such winter harvesting can be used throughout the year.

How to freeze cherries in syrup

You can freeze cherries in syrup, so the berries will retain their taste and color as much as possible. This piece can be served with pancakes, pancakes or ice cream.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg of cherries;
• 300 g sugar;
• 100 ml of water.

Preparation:

• Let's prepare the cherries. To do this, wash the berries, dry them and remove the seeds.
• Cooking syrup. Pour sugar into a saucepan. The amount can be decreased and increased - it all depends on taste preferences. Pour water into the sugar, put on fire and bring to a boil.

• Pour the cherries directly into the boiling syrup with the juice that has come out.
• Cook the berries for 2-3 minutes, turn off the heating and leave it to cool completely.

• We pour the berry mass into containers, cover with lids and put it in the freezer for storage.
• When freezing cherries in syrup, it must be borne in mind that such a berry is much sweeter than a cherry, so you should not use too much sugar so that the preparation does not turn out sugary.

Cherry with stone cubes

This way of freezing cherries is suitable for those who often prepare cocktails:

1. Let's prepare the berries. You do not need to get the seeds, we just wash and dry the fruits.
2. Now we take a mold for freezing ice, put a berry in each cell.
3. Fill with clean boiled water, close the lid and put in the freezer. If the form does not have a lid, then wrap it with cling film.
4. Berries in portioned ice cubes look very aesthetically pleasing and original. Therefore, try this method to surprise the guests at the festive table.

It's so easy to freeze cherries for the winter. You just need to keep it in the freezer of the refrigerator. But if the season of the berries was a success, it can even be dried both in an electric dryer and in a conventional oven. To do this, pierce the fruits in several places, lay them out on a baking sheet and dry them for 17 hours at a temperature of 70 ° C. We store dried fruits in paper bags or glass jars.