Glace’ Fruit

(originally posted on our FB group by Bernice)

Day 1

1 1/2 pound of fruit (we use 25 plums), cut in half, pit removed, and halves flattened by pressing your thumbs against the peel side and pressing it so it curves the opoposite direction.
2 C water
2/3 C sugar
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Combine the water, sugar, and lemon juice in a large sauce pan. Add prepared fruit. Heat syrup-fruit mixture to 180 degrees on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat. Cool. Cover and let stand 18-24 hours at room tempature.
Day 2

1 1/4 C sugar

Carefull remove fruit from syrup with a slotted spoon. Add 1 1/4 cups sugar to syrup in saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat. With a large metal spoon, skim foam from surface of syrup and discard (I’ve not had this problem with plums or cherries). Add fruit to syrup and heat to 180 degrees on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat. Cool. Cover and let stand at room tempature 18-24 hours.
Day 3

2 C sugar

Repeat process of the 2nd day but add 2 cups of sugar to remaining syrup after removing friut.

Day 4

1 C sugar
Repeat process of the second day but add 1 cup sugar to remaining syrup after removing fruit.
Day 5

After final standing time, remove fruit from syrup. Place in a colander and rinse with cold water Dry on drying trays at 120 to 140 degrees until fruit is leathery and has no pockets of moisture. Drying times for glace’ fruit will be one-fouth of the drying time for fresh fruit because so much moisutre has been replace by sugar.
Comments:
Instead of using a slotted spoon, I put a colander in the pot and just dump.

I will do more than one batch at a time. The amount that can be done at one time is dependent on the size of the fruit dryer.

I freeze my plums after they are done to ensure that they don’t go bad.

I put them in snack bags so I can grab a bag and go. It is easy to over eat these, which is a problem because they are prunes (and will do what prunes do) and a snack bag will control the amount that is eaten in one sitting.

The syrup is delish! Freeze and share!

After doing a batch of plums, I cut more plums, heat the syrup, add plums, heat to 180 degrees, and let stand 18-24 hours. Next day, I remove the plums, heat the syrup, add the plums, heat to 180 degrees, let cool and let stand 18-24 hours. Put plums and some syrup in a food processor or blender, blend. Add syrup to desired consistancy and use as syrup. That was our favorite syrup; we liked it better than just plain syrup.

This can be done with cherries, peaches, pinapples, plums, apricots, apples, pears, and citris peels. Fruits need to be peeled and cut into 14 to 1/2 thick slices. Some fruits will need to be treated so they don’t turn brown (I’d used a lemon juice dip).