Dried plums prunes at home recipe video. How to dry prunes at home: we dry plums in the sun, in the oven and in an electric dryer

» Plums

Dried plums are called prunes. Properly cooked prunes have excellent taste and are able to retain a huge amount of nutrients.

For the preparation of our favorite dried fruit, not every variety of plum is suitable. Often, Hungarian plums are used to make prunes.

The Hungarian Italian variety is best suited. The fruits of this variety are large in size, oval in shape, blue in color with a bluish tint. Such a plum is perfect for drying, because it has a dense skin and elastic pulp. Besides This variety is characterized by a low content of acid, and there is a sufficient amount of sugar in it.

In addition to the Italian Hungarian for the manufacture of prunes, Hungarian Azhan and Hungarian violet are used. Varieties such as Ugorka, Burton and Izyum-erik are also great for drying.

For the preparation of prunes, only ripe or overripe fruits are chosen, since they have the highest sugar content, and there is little acid in them.

Plums for drying are collected from the ground, but in no case are they cut off from the branches of a tree. If the fruits fall off, then they have reached maturity. Before picking the fruit, the tree should be lightly shaken so that damaged fruits, as well as rotten and worm-eaten fruits, fall. The next day, you can already pick up ripe plums.

Having decided on the choice of variety for the preparation of dried plums, you can proceed to the preparatory processing of fresh fruits.

Cooking prunes is not an easy process, as it may initially seem. If you just dry the plums, then prunes will not work out of them. Fruits will lose their juice, become too hard and the surface of the fruit will turn brown instead of black. To obtain a tasty and healthy dried fruit, plums should be carefully prepared for drying.

Before starting the drying process, the fruits are stored in a covered area in baskets. The volume of fruits in one basket does not exceed 16 kg. Fruits are stored for three days. This is necessary to ensure plum softness, which will later become a property of prunes. If this period is extended, then fermentation processes will begin to occur in the collected fruits. Naturally, before drying the plums, they are washed well. This is done several times in a row. When the water after washing the fruit becomes transparent, this procedure can be completed.
Then plums are sorted, that is, large plums are separated from small ones.. After that, the plums are checked for the presence of spoiled fruits that cannot be used to prepare prunes. At the end of the research procedure, the fruits are thoroughly washed again. But the preparation of plums for drying is not yet over.
The next step is the blanching process. That is, the fruits are subjected to heat treatment: they are placed in hot water. This process helps to soften the tissues of the fruit, as well as the displacement of air from the plum and an increase in the size of the cells. In addition, when the fetus is placed in water, oxidative enzymes are split. During blanching, of the important elements, only a small amount of ascorbic acid is lost. The number of remaining significant substances almost does not change. But, treatment with water alone is not enough.
Alkaline treatment is used to get rid of the waxy part from the surface of the fruit. A boiling 1% solution of caustic soda is suitable for this procedure. Plums lie in it for 15 - 20 seconds. But here you need to know that at home, plums may not be completely washed after processing. In this regard, potash should be used instead of caustic soda. After treatment with alkali, the fruits are cooled.

How to make dried fruits in the oven?

To cook prunes in the oven, the plums are blanched, then they are washed with cold water and left to dry on a towel. If the fruit is cut into two parts, then the blanching procedure is not carried out. Drying fruits in the oven consists of three stages at different temperatures.

At the first stage, the oven is heated to 50 ° C, a baking sheet with fruit is placed in it for 5 hours. After that, the same period of time the plums cool down.
At the next stage, the plums are turned over and dried for 5 hours in an oven heated to 70 ° C.
At the last stage of drying, the temperature increases to 75 °C. Here the fruits are already brought to full readiness.

To achieve a glossy appearance of dried fruits, it is not necessary to process them with anything. If a few minutes before the end of drying the fruits in the oven, add the temperature to 120 ° C, then the sugar released from the fruit caramelizes the prunes and adds shine to their surface.

Cooking prunes in an electric dryer

To obtain prunes in an electric dryer, after blanching, the plums are placed on a pallet in one layer. If the fruits are divided in half, then they are laid cut up. The drying process in this way also takes place in 3 stages at certain temperature conditions:

the first 3–4 hours, fruits are dried at a temperature of 45–55 ° C;
then the plums are dried at a temperature of 60 degrees for 6 hours;
the final stage - the fruits are put to dry for 6 hours at a temperature of 75–80 ° C.

At all stages of preparation of dried fruits, pallets are changed every hour, so that dried fruits will turn out to be of better quality.

After the completion of each stage, the pallets are taken out of the dryer for several hours to cool the future prunes.

Drying plums in the sun

In a natural way, the fruits are dried on sheets of wood. The halves of the fruit, separated from the seeds, are laid out on a sheet not very close to each other, cut up, so that they do not lose juice during drying. Depending on the size, plums should lie in the sun for 4 to 5 days.

It should be observed that insects do not sit on the fruit. Otherwise, harmful microorganisms may appear in dried fruits.

At night, plums are brought into the house, and in the morning they are taken out into the fresh air after the dew falls, so that mold does not form on them. When drying, the plums are turned over from time to time so that they dry evenly on each side. At the end of drying under the rays of sunlight, the fruits are dried in a shady place for another 3-4 days.

The readiness of prunes is checked according to certain criteria:

when pressing on the fruit, there are no gaps on them and no juice flows out;
the fruits are elastic and firm, but at the same time they do not crumble if you press them;
prunes do not stick to fingers.

Ways to store prunes at home

It is absolutely not difficult to keep prunes at home. To do this, you just need to follow some simple recommendations. To store this dried fruit, use linen bags and paper bags, wooden boxes with good ventilation, tightly closed containers or glass, metal and plastic vessels with a sealed lid.

Before placing the fruits in storage, make sure that they are whole, without damage, spots and plaque on the surface.

Store at room temperature in a sealed container

Prunes can be stored in glass and ceramic jars with a tight-fitting lid for up to six months.

First of all, the container is prepared. It is thoroughly washed, doused with boiling water and dried.
Then dried fruits are placed in it, closed tightly with a lid and put in a cool place.
If the prunes turned out to be wet, then it should be dried.
Periodically it is necessary to monitor the condition of dried plums.

Placing dried fruits in hermetically sealed containers, tins or glass jars is recognized as the best way to store them.

Storage of dried plums in linen bags and paper bags

Some store dried fruits in linen bags. But only if there are no harmful insects in the house, such as ants or cockroaches.

Bags made of dense fabric are soaked in a strong saline solution. Then they are well dried, prunes are put in them and tied.

Paper bags are filled and closed in the same way. Thanks to the fabric and paper, dried plums can breathe, and they also become moldy and retain all their beneficial qualities.

The only disadvantage of this storage method is the impossibility of placing prunes near very smelling products: coffee, spices, tobacco.

Storing prunes in the refrigerator

If the room is dominated by high humidity, then dried fruits are stored in the refrigerator. For this:

Prunes are carefully sorted, fruits with damage are separated.
Packed in small portions in a glass container with a tight-fitting lid, containers or bags with a zip fastener.
Placed on a shelf, refrigerator door or in the fruit compartment
Check the moisture in the container once a week. If it appears, the fruits are dried.

Proper storage of dried plums will preserve all its important properties.

Naturally, you can protect yourself from unnecessary trouble and buy prunes in the market or in the store. But when it is possible to cook prunes at home, you should not expose yourself and your family to possible negative consequences.

Many people dream of having a large amount of dried fruits in their storerooms, which have many beneficial properties for the human body. Dried fruits are a delicacy that came to Russia from the East, which is why it is so amazing and appetizing. Prunes are a wonderful berry that will help a person lose weight or fight various heart diseases. It has a pleasant smell and is very popular with children.

Preparing plums for drying

To cook such an appetizing and healthy prunes, you must first sort through the plums, choosing only only large berries. It is worth making sure that they are not soft, overripe. If such berries are caught, then juice will soon begin to flow from them. Then high-quality prunes will not work.

Usually, berries of approximately the same size are chosen for drying prunes. All berries that have been selected for drying are washed well, and their tails are removed. They must pass and blanching process. To do this, they must be placed for several minutes in a colander and in boiling water, to which a little soda was previously added.

This process will get rid of the wax coating.

The recipe is plum processing very simple: one liter of boiling water requires one tablespoon of soda. Keep the berry in the water usually no more than 30 seconds. After that, it is thoroughly doused with cold running water, and spread on a dry towel, allowing the berries to dry. If this procedure was done correctly, then there will be cracks on the surface of the drains through which moisture will be removed.

How to dry a plum in an electric dryer

You can dry the plum both with bone and without it. If it is large, then it is better to cut it in half and, accordingly, the bone will have to be removed. So the berries will dry much faster, and most importantly, they will not rot. The plum drying process itself consists of several stages:

Sort and wash the plum.
Blanch the berries.
Divide the plums into those with pits and those without them.
Seedless berries must be placed cut side up.

It is necessary to dry plums in an electric dryer at a temperature no more than 40 degrees. First, they are placed in an electric dryer for 6 hours, and then they are cooled for the same amount. This will be the first stage of drying. On the next one, it is necessary to raise the temperature in the electric dryer to 60 degrees, but it is also necessary to dry and cool for 6 hours. And at the third stage, the temperature in the electric dryer should be at least 80 degrees. Drying and cooling times remain the same. You can check the fruits for readiness.

Ready prunes will differ from the original plums in that they will become elastic, elastic dried evenly. It is worth examining the berries well: juice should not flow out of them.

Drying plums in the oven

One of the easiest ways to prepare prunes is to dry the plums in the oven. The rules and stages of its preparation remain the same: you need to wash and sort the berries, their blanching and drying are obligatory. During drying in the oven, it is worth making sure that there is a certain temperature regime and you need to monitor the time the berries stay in the oven and then cool down.

Plums should be dried in the oven no more than 4 hours, but it needs to cool down for about 6-8 hours. As soon as this time is over, place it in the oven again, preheating it to 80 degrees. In this temperature regime, it should dry for 6 hours, and then you need to leave it to cool for 3 hours. And again, we heat the oven to 100 degrees, put the plum there and hold for 30 minutes. Prunes are ready! The berries will shine. It remains only to place them in some kind of container with a tight lid.

Cooking prunes in the sun at home

The most natural way to dry plums at home is to place them under direct sunlight. If you have your own house that allows you to spread the berries in the yard, then this is the best option for making prunes. This will require some kind of cardboard sheet where the plums will fit. The preparation steps are simple:

The drain must be carefully prepared for drying: washed and sorted out.
Sun-drying plums should not be dried whole, so cut them open and remove the pit.
Spread them out on a sheet of cardboard in one layer and place them in a sunny place.

It is worth remembering that at night or in cool rainy weather, the plum must be removed, otherwise the berries will become damp. And then high-quality prunes, which would be stored for a long time, will no longer work. From time to time you need plums turn over otherwise the berries will not dry evenly. So, in the sunlight they should be kept for about a week.

Check, is the prunes ready, you can use a simple old method: squeeze one of the berries.

If juice does not stand out from it, and the berry itself is elastic, then everything is done correctly and the prunes are ready. So that flies and other insects do not interfere during drying, it is recommended to cover them with gauze.

Preparing prunes in the microwave

Drying plums in the microwave is considered the fastest way cooking prunes at home. The berry dries quickly, but all its useful properties remain. Such drying is carried out in several stages:

Wash the plum, dry on a towel.
Arrange on a microwave dish.
Set the microwave timer for 30 seconds, and make the power 250 watts.
Put the resulting dried fruits on paper and let cool.

Drying plums in air fryer

Even with the help of an air grill at home, you can cook delicious and sweet prunes that will delight all family members in the winter. This method of preparing prunes is interesting in that the final product has slight smokey smell. But the disadvantage is that it usually turns out less than it was originally. For example, from 1 kilogram of plums you get only 200 grams.

But on the other hand, prunes cooked in an air grill have not only a pleasant appearance, but also appetizing aroma. The stages of preparing prunes are practically the same as how it is prepared in other ways. Also, the plum must first be thoroughly washed and sorted out. In an air grill, berries can be dried both small and large, with and without a stone.

Dry the plum in the air grill should be at a temperature of 65 degrees for forty minutes, and then you need to leave it for an hour so that the berry can cool. This process will need to be repeated two more times and left to cool until the next day. On the second day, this drying process is repeated three times and the time between them is approximately 60 minutes. It remains only to spread the dried berries on paper and leave them until the next day. Prunes are ready, it can be collected in bags or wooden boxes, where it will be perfectly stored.

How to dry pitted plums

Prunes can be either pitted or with them. Delicious pitted prunes can be obtained by following these recommendations:

Wash.
Divide them in half and remove the pit.
Pour a mixture of water and citric acid into a saucepan.
Bring this lemon mixture to a boil.
Blanch plums in this lemon solution for 40 minutes.

Such preparation will give prunes softness and tenderness.

Prunes are very good for human health. It is recommended to eat at least 5 of them per day, as this will have a positive effect on the work of the stomach. Prunes are also good for the heart, helping to restore its work.

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

If you are already ready to start harvesting, then our following recommendations will help you cope with the task perfectly, and as a result you will get a very tasty and no doubt healthy product.

Cooking prunes at home

To get a truly delicious and high-quality homemade prunes, we choose for this purpose the most ripe fruits of plums, which very easily part with the pits without damaging the inner pulp.

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

Immerse the prepared plums in the resulting soda mixture and hold for twenty to thirty seconds. We immediately wash the fruits with hot water, let them drain well, and lay them out on a baking sheet, which we 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 hold for three to four hours. Then we let the fruits cool completely, having previously mixed them, and again put them in the oven, now already heated to seventy degrees. After five hours of drying, take out the baking sheet, mix and also cool. At the final third stage, we place the cream in an oven heated to ninety degrees and dry for another four hours. At each stage of drying, the oven door should be slightly ajar.

If you did everything right, then at the end of all the steps, you should get delicious homemade prunes as a result. If desired, you can give the dried fruit a natural shine. To do this, at the end of the last stage, we increase the temperature regime to one hundred and twenty degrees and hold for several minutes. At the same time, the sugar contained in the fruit comes to the surface and caramelizes, thereby giving a glossy sheen.

Owners of an electric dryer can easily cook homemade prunes with it.

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

So, the plums are washed, if desired, they are freed from the stone. Now we need, as in the traditional version, to blanch the fruits. To do this, we lower them for twenty seconds into 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 them drain, and place the dryers on pallets not very close to each other.

The temperature regime of the dryer should be approximately the same as when drying in the oven and also include several stages. Initially, dry at fifty degrees for about four hours. Then we raise the temperature to sixty degrees and hold for five hours. The same or a little more time will be needed for drying at seventy degrees. After each stage of drying, it is necessary to remove the drain trays for about five hours to cool and chaff.

Perhaps your plums will be more or less juicy and the drying time will be correspondingly longer or shorter. We periodically check the readiness of prunes and determine the time of its preparation at home on our own.

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 paper on top and store it in a cool place.

Everyone knows about the benefits and taste of dried fruits. Our markets and shops offer a wide variety of this delicacy. Arriving at the dacha, we state the fact that a huge amount of fruit disappears under the tree without waiting for processing, and it’s not difficult to prepare dried fruits for the winter at home.

Here, for example, how many goodies can be prepared from prunes in tandem with other products. A delicious plum fruit without much effort and expense turns into an equally tasty and healthy prunes, which, thanks to its sweet and sour taste, goes well with meat.

Consider the process of harvesting prunes

Stage 1

We take fully ripened plums, wash them well and separate the seeds. You should choose varieties that easily lag behind the bone. Large ones are divided into slices, and small and medium ones are dried without removing the bone, entirely. We carry out blanching, keeping the fruits for 30 seconds in a soda solution heated to a temperature of at least 90 degrees. We prepare a solution of soda based on 10 liters of water - 100 grams of soda. If during the blanching process large cracks appear on the skin of the plum or the skin eventually peels off, then it is necessary to dilute the solution, and reduce the time for immersing the fruit in boiling water.

stage 2

Next, rinse the plums in hot water and put them on a baking sheet in a single layer. Drying is carried out in the oven at a temperature of 50-55 degrees. This mode must be maintained for 3-4 hours. Then we turn the plums over and give time to cool.

Stage 3 .

The next stage of drying takes place at a temperature of 60-70 degrees, after which we re-mix and cool the resulting product.

Stage 4

At the end of the procedure, we increase the temperature to 90 degrees and withstand drying for at least 5 hours.

Stage 5 . The shiny surface of prunes appears due to caramelization, i.e. at the end of drying, the temperature is raised to 100-120 degrees, as a result of which the sugar contained in the fruits comes out and burns.

The process of harvesting prunes in general takes about 12 hours. Therefore, they usually try to divide the procedure into 2-3 days.

To get 1 kg of prunes, we process 4.5 kg of fresh plums.

Dried plum, or, in other words, prunes is a very healthy delicacy. But are you 100% sure that you are buying a quality product in the store that has not been treated with any chemicals to improve the appearance? I don't think anyone can answer this question unambiguously. Today we propose to consider ways to dry plums yourself at home. Such a product will certainly be of the highest standard, since the entire cooking process will be controlled by you personally.

You can dry any variety of plums, but the fruits that are firm and dense to the touch are best kept in shape. In this case, the product must be fully matured.

The preparatory stage consists of several steps:

Sorting. When sorting through fruits, specimens with rot and various damage should be immediately excluded. Only the best fruits should be dried.
Cleansing. Fruits are washed under running water and dried with paper towels.

Removal of bones. The plum is cut in half and the core is removed. This completes the preparation of pitted plums for drying. You can proceed directly to dehydration. If you plan to dry prunes with a stone, then we skip this step and follow all the other steps.
Blanching. In a liter of boiling water, dissolve 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and place the plum in this solution for 20 seconds. The amount of liquid is calculated so that the fruit is completely submerged in water. If necessary, increase the portion several times. This procedure is necessary in order to remove the wax layer from the surface. The skin from being in boiling water should crack, which will contribute to better evaporation of the liquid.
After blanching, the plum is washed under running water.
In conclusion, the fruits are thoroughly dried with paper towels.

All ways of drying plums

In the sun

The prepared plum is laid out on grates or in well-ventilated boxes, and taken out into the sun. Every evening, containers with fruit are brought into the room and put back only the next day, not earlier than the dew has come down.

The total drying time is 4 to 6 days. It depends on the weather conditions and the size of the fruit.

After drying is completed, dried fruits must be finally dried in the shade. This will take another 3-4 days.

In the oven

To keep the baking sheet clean, it is covered with baking paper. Also, drying can be done on special grates. Prepared fruits are laid out in one layer. If the plum was cut in half, then it is laid with the skin down.

Drying in the oven consists of several stages:

5 hours at +50ºС;
6 hours at +70ºС;
until the product is ready at a temperature of +75…+80ºС.

Between stages, the baking sheet is removed from the oven, the prunes are turned over and allowed to cool completely. After - continue the process according to the instructions.

Watch the video from the channel "Men in the Kitchen!" How to cook prunes at home

In an electric dryer

Plums are laid out on special pallets also in one layer. If you dry the halves of the fruit, then they must be placed cut up.

The temperature regime for the entire drying time will vary:

Stage 1: dry for 4 hours at a temperature of +50 ... + 55ºС. We change the trays in places and turn the pieces over.
Stage 2: dry for 4 - 6 hours at a temperature of + 60ºС. We change trays, turn over plums.
Stage 3: until the product is ready, approximately 4 - 6 hours at a temperature of + 75 ... + 80ºС.

Watch the video from the channel "Ezidri Master" - Drying plums

in the microwave

For express drying in the microwave, you need to use only hard fruits, otherwise the plum will turn into porridge.

So, we take out the bones from the fruit and put them in a flat bowl lined with a paper towel. Slices should be placed cut side up. Cover the top of the slices with a paper towel.

We turn on the microwave oven at medium power for 3 minutes. At the end of this time, we remove the napkin, and put the products back in the oven for the same amount of time.

After the microwave signal, set it to full power, and dry the plums for another 1 minute. If this time is not enough, you can continue drying, checking for readiness every 60 seconds.

How to store prunes

Ready dried fruits should be elastic and firm. They should not stick to your hands or crumble when squeezed.

You can store prunes for 1 year away from products with a pungent odor.

Containers with dried fruits - glass jars, plastic containers or bags - are best kept in the refrigerator. If the product turned out to be dried, then it should be stored in the freezer.