Glace' Fruit, & Fruit Syrup
Submitted by navbil
Make glace fruit at home with this classic four-day method, slowly saturating apples, peaches, cherries, or citrus peel in sugar syrup until candied and leathery. The spent syrup becomes a fruit-flavored pancake syrup.
YIELD
24 servingsPREP
4 daysCOOK
4 hrsREADY
5 daysCandied fruit from the store costs a fortune and tastes of nothing but sugar. This old-fashioned method fixes both, walking apples, peaches, cherries, or citrus peel through a slow four-day sugar bath until they turn glossy and chewy.
The whole idea is patience over speed. Each day you add a little more sugar to the syrup, warm the fruit through, then let it rest a full day at room temperature. Rushing it traps water inside, and the fruit weeps later.
Drain, rinse, and dry the fruit low until it is leathery with no soft pockets, and you have glace fruit ready for fruitcake, panettone, or snacking straight off the tray.
Best part: nothing goes to waste. The spent syrup, thick with concentrated fruit flavor, gets boiled down and canned as a pancake syrup.
Kitchen Tips
- Keep batches small. Tripling is the limit, and pears shouldn’t even be doubled or they overcook into mush.
- Boil citrus peel in plain water for 15 minutes before it ever touches the syrup. This strips the harsh bitterness from the pith.
- Skim the foam off the syrup each day. Those impurities cloud the finished syrup and dull the fruit’s shine.
- Dry the fruit low and slow on trays until it bends like leather. Any moisture left behind invites mold in storage.
Variations
- Roll the dried pieces in granulated sugar for a frosted, gift-ready finish.
- Try pineapple and cherries together for the classic fruitcake mix, or stick to citrus peel for baking and cocktails.
Ingredients
Directions
Notes: To glace citrus peel, you should use ¾ pound of peel and halve the remaining ingredients.
Recipe may be doubled or tripled but should not be done in any larger batches than that - fruit can become too ‘cooked'.
Don’t double or triple recipe for pears; they become too mushy.
Yield is approximate and depends on fruit used.
First Day: Prepare fruit (see below).
Combine all ingredients except fruit in a large saucepan.
Bring to a boil. Add prepared fruit.
Heat syrup-fruit mixture to 180 F.
on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat. Cool. Cover and let stand at room temperature 18 to 24 hours. Second Day: Drain syrup from fruit. Add second quantity of sugar to syrup and bring to a boil. Remove from heat. With a large metal spoon, skim any foam from the surface of the fruit and discard. Put fruit back in syrup and heat to 180 F. again. Remove from heat, cover and let stand at room temperature for 18 to 24 hours. Third Day: Repeat same process as second day, but add the third quantity of sugar. Fourth Day: Repeat same process, using fourth quantity of sugar. After final standing time, remove fruit from syrup. Place in a colander and rinse in cold water. Dry on drying trays at 120 to 140 F. until fruit is leathery and has no pockets of moisture. Drying time for glace’ fruit will be one-fourth of the drying time for resh fruit because so much moisture has been replaced by FRUIT-FLAVORED PANCAKE SYRUP: Bring syrup to a boil, skim the foam, and pour into hot sterilized canning jars, filling them to ½ inch from the top. Seal with two part lids and process 5 minutes in boiling water bath. PREPARING FRUIT: Apples: Washi, peel, core and slice ¼ inch thick. Apricots: Wash and cut in half; remove pits. Cherries: Wash and remove stems and pits. Citrus Peel. Use only the colored part of the peel. Cover with water and boil 15 minutes. Drain before adding to syrup. Peaches: Wash and scald, slip skins off, pit and cut into ½ inch slices. Pears: Wash, peel thinly and core. Cut lengthwise in ½ inch slices. Do not prepare large quantities at a time as the soft texture will begin to deteriorate. Pineapple: Wash and peel. Remove thorny eyes. Cut lenthwise and remove the core. Cut crosswise in ½ inch slices. Prune Plums: Wash, cut in half and remove stones. Flatten by pushing in the cupped side with your thumbs.
Comments
I recommend that the syrup be saved and heavy cream be added (about a quart) it is the color that matters...I like the carmel flavor at a medium beige color.