Dried pears will be an excellent alternative to fresh fruits for the usual compotes and jam. Why buy dried fruits, the quality of which is often in doubt, when you can easily make your own preparations for the winter from environmentally friendly products at home. The heat treatment process allows you to preserve all vitamins and nutrients. This fruit will take its rightful place on the table and will become a favorite delicacy for children.
What are the benefits of dried pear?
The housewife should have information about the benefits of dried pears. It's nice to know that a delicious dessert is sometimes necessary for the body.
The main properties that relate to this fruit:
- In terms of the amount of vitamin B9 (folic acid), the fruit surpassed even black currants. It is what gives the body freshness and vigor. In common parlance it is also called the hormone of happiness.
- Folic acid contained in homemade dried pears helps with cardiovascular health. Positively affects the growth and development of body tissues.
- There is a known antimicrobial effect that has a positive effect on human organs.
- Helps cleanse the body of toxins and cholesterol, which is important for people with diabetes.
Important!
There are no contraindications to eating dried pears unless there are allergic reactions. The composition of this fruit is not inferior to dried apricots, pineapples, dates and papaya, which have undergone the same process.
Calorie content of dried pear
Some people have to monitor the energy value of their foods. They should look at the table to know the content and calorie content of dried pear.
Kcal per 100 g | carbohydrates | squirrels | fats | |
246 g | 62 g | 2 g | 0 g | |
Daily norm | 12% | 23% | 3% | 0% |
People who are losing weight should not eat a lot of dried pears. It is enough to consume a couple of slices a day to saturate your body with nutrients without spoiling your figure.
But for a person undergoing treatment or an athlete during intense training, dried fruit, due to its high carbohydrate content, will come to the rescue in restoring and gaining muscle mass.
Benefits and harm to the body
Pears are a must-have product for people who are on a diet (they help the body quickly absorb food). A decoction of these fruits is useful for many diseases: cough, kidney stones, fever, tuberculosis.
Dried pears relieve inflammation in the kidneys, lower cholesterol, and also:
- Removes toxins;
- Cleanse the intestines;
- Improves blood composition;
- They are an expectorant;
- Normalize blood pressure.
Dried pears can only be harmful if you are intolerant to them. Fruits also provoke exacerbation of some chronic pathologies (gastritis, diabetes, ulcers).
How to make dried pears on an industrial scale
Housewives are too lazy to dry pears themselves at home, believing that the purchased product is no worse. Store-bought dried fruits (including dried pears) are a completely unhealthy dessert, since on an industrial scale it is not possible to process raw materials in a natural way and manufacturers, of course, with the permission of tracking organizations, use other methods.
Here are just a few of them:
- Pre-soak in sugar syrup to improve taste. The calorie content of dried pears is much higher, which can be avoided at home.
- Alkali treatment. This helps increase shelf life.
- They use dyes, oils and flavors to attract customers.
Therefore, you can take into account the following tips: when choosing, give preference to products labeled “eco”, do not take very bright colors and greasy to the touch. It’s better to prepare your own naturally dried pears at home.
How to dry pears at home
The first thing you need to do is choose the right fruit. For drying, fruit varieties with thin peel and dense pulp, not overripe, collected within 2 days are suitable.
The following types are popular:
- Bergamot;
- Fragrant;
- Forest beauty;
- Extravaganza;
- Bronze.
Pears that have broken and dented places, damage from worms or any disease are also not suitable for drying
. The drying process is simple if the housewife is attentive. Preparatory stages:
- The pears must be thoroughly washed first.
- Next, place the fruit on a napkin and dry well.
- Cut each fruit into pieces. Their number depends on the size and usually ranges from 2 to 6 slices. The main thing is that they are the same, otherwise during heat treatment the dried pear will have different degrees of readiness. But if a small variety is selected, it is better to leave it whole.
- You will need to sprinkle the prepared product with granulated sugar and leave for a couple of days, stirring occasionally.
- Place the fruit in a colander and allow the juice to drain, which can be used in other recipes.
Advice! Not everyone likes the added sugar option, and some are careful about calories. Therefore, the last stage with sugaring can be skipped.
Delicious dried pears are prepared in an electric dryer, oven, or outdoors on hot summer days. Wine and spices are used to diversify the taste and aroma.
Storing dried fruits
To prevent the fruits from becoming moldy and spoiled, you should follow not only the drying rules, but also the storage conditions:
- Storing too long makes the fruit tough and unsightly to look at. Therefore, dried fruits should be used whenever possible and not stored for more than a year.
- Do not store the dryer near heating systems or various heaters.
- The food being stored should be checked periodically to ensure there is no mold.
- They should not be stored near an electric stove to avoid the appearance of condensation in the containers, which will subsequently cause spoilage of the product.
It is best to store drying in glass jars with an airtight lid or in fabric bags.
Properly dried and preserved fruits will pleasantly surprise you with their taste and aroma during the cold season.
Recipe for dried pears in an electric dryer
A fairly common method among modern housewives, where the fruit is divided only into halves to preserve juiciness.
Product set:
- fruits – 1.5 kg;
- sugar – 0.5 kg.
Prepare dried pears by repeating the steps:
- Wash and dry pears, halve and core.
- Make several punctures on the skin with a toothpick, place in an enamel bowl and sprinkle with sugar.
- After 2 days, drain the juice and put it in a saucepan on the fire. Boil.
- Blanch the fruit in the sweet syrup over low heat for no longer than 10 minutes. You can easily tell if it is ready by pressing the edges towards the middle. If the half gives in, but with difficulty, then you can take it out.
- Place on a sieve to drain excess liquid.
- Once the pears have cooled, place them on trays. Dry on high power at 60 degrees. During the drying process, you need to take breaks to cool the fruit a little and change the positions of the stands inside.
The total time usually does not exceed 15 hours. It depends on the power of the electric dryer.
Fruit preparation
Guaranteed long-term storage - the right variety. Varieties suitable for drying:
For harvesting, you should take only ripe, but not overripe fruits. They should not be too soft or hard to the touch.
Preparation of raw materials:
- Wash the selected pears thoroughly, then dry well;
- Sort through the fruits, remove spoiled or damaged ones;
- Cut the pear in half, remove the core;
- To ensure the fruits wilt well, cut them into small slices.
Dried pears in the oven
The recipe for oven-dried pears for the winter is presented for people on a diet.
Step by step guide:
- Rinse the fruits under the tap and wipe with a kitchen napkin.
- Remove the entire core and stem. Cut into slices no thinner than 1 cm and place on a baking sheet covered with parchment.
- Preheat the oven to 60 degrees, place and cook the dried pears, but do not close the door completely, leaving room for the liquid to evaporate.
- At this stage, watch carefully and, when the pieces begin to dry out, immediately reduce the temperature to 55 and leave for 3 hours.
- Check and, if the result is not satisfactory, leave in the oven, but for longer than 40 minutes, lowering the temperature further.
Cool the dried pears and store them.
Recipes for dried pears with cinnamon
People on a diet know that baked fruits are an excellent substitute for any dessert that can harm their figure. Some simply happened to try this dish in expensive restaurants. If you change the technology a little, you will get a wonderful recipe for aromatic and unusually vitamin-rich dried pears at home.
For 4 large fruits, prepare the following products:
- fresh liquid honey – 4 tsp;
- cinnamon - to taste.
Preparation step by step:
- Rinse the pears under running water, remove the liquid with a napkin and peel.
- Cut into slices of any size. The duration of the drying process will depend on this procedure.
- Pour in half the honey and let stand for a day. Remove the resulting juice.
- Mix the remaining bee product with cinnamon and pears.
- Place fruit on a sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Place in an oven preheated to a maximum of 60 degrees. Leave the door ajar.
Readiness is easy to determine. Press the slice with your fingers until it becomes soft but elastic.
Advice! If you are intolerant to honey, you can replace it with regular sugar. Some people add lemon juice, which not only adds flavor, but is also an excellent preservative.
You can use a simpler option.
It will require the following products:
- peeled fruits – 3 pcs.;
- cinnamon, cloves - 2 tsp each;
- citric acid – 1 tsp;
- powdered sugar – 4 tsp.
Prepare dried pears, repeating all the steps:
- Divide the fruits into slices and immerse them in water diluted with citric acid. Leave for 30 minutes.
- Drain in a colander and dry.
- Mix with spices and place on a baking sheet covered with foil. Bake at 180 degrees. It will take 10 minutes.
- Reduce temperature to 100 degrees and leave for another 5 minutes.
- Cool in the open and switched off oven.
- Take it out, preheat the oven, put a sheet of fruit on it and immediately turn it off.
- Dry until the desired result is achieved.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar when cold.
Dessert
Applesauce is used in other recipes. When thickeners are added, it makes delicious sweets for tea. You can make desserts from fresh apples or from ready-made puree in a jar.
Jelly
Description. A simple and healthy dessert is apple jelly, which can be sealed in a jar until it hardens or eaten immediately. Cupcake pans will help you make your dessert beautiful. It is recommended to decorate the jelly with whipped cream or powdered sugar before serving.
What is necessary:
- apples - 500 g;
- water - 625 ml;
- sugar - 180 g;
- gelatin - 15 g;
- cinnamon - teaspoon.
How to cook
- Quarter the washed apples, cut off the stem and seed pods.
- Place the slices in a saucepan and cover with water.
- Add sugar and boil.
- Cook until the fruit is soft.
- Grind or rub the slices through a sieve.
- Soak the gelatin granules according to the instructions and heat over the fire (be careful not to boil).
- Combine the swollen warm mixture with applesauce, season, and stir.
- Pour into molds or jars.
- After the mass has cooled and hardened, you can try it.
Marshmallow
Description. Homemade marshmallows made from applesauce are tender and airy, melting on the tongue. For cooking, it is recommended to use varieties with a high pectin content. “Antonovka” with a pleasant sour taste is perfect. You need exactly 250g of applesauce, so the amount of apples may vary. The recipe requires speed so that the marshmallows do not harden prematurely. To lay out the mixture, it is better to use a pastry bag with a nozzle. If you don’t have a tool, you can spread the mixture with a spoon.
What is necessary:
- apples - five pieces;
- egg white;
- sugar - 725 g;
- water - 160 ml;
- agar-agar - 8 g;
- vanillin - half a teaspoon.
How to cook
- Wash and cut the apples in half.
- Cut out the cores and bake the halves until soft.
- Without waiting for it to cool, remove the skin or grind the fruit through a sieve to obtain a homogeneous, tender mass (you can use kitchen utensils).
- Measure out exactly 250 g of puree and add the same amount of sugar.
- Add vanillin, stir and leave for half an hour.
- Soak the agar in water, stir and leave for a few minutes.
- Heat the resulting mixture over medium heat and add the remaining sugar.
- Stirring constantly, cook the syrup for five minutes until thick.
- Add half the egg white to the applesauce and beat with a mixer at medium speed until light in color.
- After adding the second half of the protein, beat the mixture at high speed until white.
- When the mass becomes fluffy and thick, pour in all the syrup in a thin stream.
- Beat in and check the consistency of the mixture: it should flow thickly behind the whisk.
- Line cutting boards or a clean table with parchment paper and prepare a piping bag.
- Squeeze the mixture into identical “roses” onto the paper and leave overnight.
- Separate the halves from the parchment and combine them together into a full-fledged marshmallow (they stick together easily).
- When serving, you can sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Following the algorithm, you can prepare quince, pear, plum, and banana marshmallows. If desired, the halves are coated with vanilla cream.
Using a simple recipe for apple puree for the winter, you can stock up on delicious treats and baby food until the end of winter. Supplement applesauce with fruits, berries, spices, vegetables, and cottage cheese. Try making puree with apricots, plums, quinces, cranberries, and beets. During the cooking process, taste the dessert to determine what is missing - acid, water or sugar.
How to dry pears soaked in mulled wine
Lovers of gourmet dessert will love this recipe for dried pears for the winter with a pleasant aroma and bright color.
Ingredients for 2 kg of pears:
- honey – 50 g;
- berry liqueur or syrup - 1 tbsp.;
- dry red wine – 1 bottle;
- currants (frozen) – 150 g;
- lemon – 2 pcs.;
- raisins – 1 handful;
- granulated sugar – 150 g.
Spices you need:
- cinnamon – 3 sticks;
- cloves – 7 inflorescences;
- cardamom – 10 boxes;
- anise – 4 stars;
- ginger – 1 tsp. powder and a small root of fresh.
Prepare dried pears following the recipe:
- First you need to prepare mulled wine syrup. To do this, add all the ingredients at once, except the fruit itself, into a large enamel bowl. Bring almost to a boil over heat, remove and let sit covered.
- There is time to take care of the pears, which should be rinsed with tap water, peeled, halved and the seeds removed. Pour into a saucepan and mix with mulled wine.
- Let it brew for 24 hours, occasionally heating it, but not bringing it to a boil. This time is enough for the fruits to absorb all the aromas and taste.
- Remove the slices and dry a little. Line a baking sheet with baking paper and carefully arrange the future dried pears so that they touch each other.
- Preheat the oven to 75 degrees, turn on the convection mode and dry the fruit with the door ajar, sometimes turning it off and letting the food cool a little.
According to housewives, heat treatment takes about 10 hours. But it's worth it.