What Are Candied cherries and How Can I Use Them?

Wondering what to do with candied cherries? This guide covers how to pick them, cook them, store them, and swap them, plus 140 recipes to put them to work.

Key Points

Whole cherries candied in sugar syrup until dense, glossy, chewy, and intensely sweet.
The classic fruitcake and holiday-cookie fruit, dyed bright red or green for color.
Toss chopped cherries in flour before adding so they do not sink in dense batter.
Closest swaps are dried tart cherries or cranberries; maraschino cherries bleed pink.
Sealed they keep a year or more; a warm rinse loosens crystallized surface sugar.

What are candied cherries?

Candied cherries, also called glace cherries, are whole cherries soaked in heavy sugar syrup until the fruit's own water is replaced by sugar. The result is dense and glossy, with a chewy bite and a long shelf life that comes from all that sugar.

Most are dyed bright red or green, the colors that make a fruitcake look like a fruitcake.

They are a baking and garnish ingredient, not a snacking cherry. The flavor is candy-sweet rather than tart, so they show up where you want jeweled color and a sticky, sugary pocket in the crumb.

How to Use Them

This is the classic fruitcake fruit. They go into Old Fashioned Fruit Cake and Dark Christmas Cake, usually chopped and tossed with a little of the recipe's flour so they do not all sink to the bottom of a dense batter.

They carry holiday cookies and breads too: whole or halved in Christmas Fruit Cookies and the German Weihnacht Plaetzchen (Christmas Cookies), or studded through stollen and bread puddings.

A single cherry, shiny side up, is the traditional cap on a thumbprint cookie or a frosted cake.

Because they are sold packed in their own syrup or sugar, rinse off the loose surface syrup and pat dry before folding into batter, or the extra sugar can make the crumb gummy.

Cooking and Pairing

The flour-toss is the move that matters. Sticky candied fruit clumps and sinks; dredging the chopped cherries in flour from the recipe before they go in keeps them suspended through the bake.

They pair with the warm fruitcake crowd: raisins, candied citron and orange peel, dates, walnuts, pecans, and a soak of brandy or rum. Their job is sweetness and color, so balance them against tart or bitter notes rather than piling on more sugar.

The most common mistake is treating them like fresh cherries. They are far sweeter and will not soften or release juice the way fresh ones do.

Substitutes

For the same jeweled look and chew, dried tart cherries or dried cranberries are the closest swap, a touch tarter and less sticky, so use about the same volume. Candied or glace pineapple and chopped candied citrus peel cover the fruitcake role if you just need sweet, chewy color.

Maraschino cherries are not a true substitute for baking. They are wet and will bleed pink into batter, though they work fine drained as a garnish.

Fresh or frozen cherries are a different ingredient entirely, juicy and tart, and will throw off the moisture in a fruitcake.

Buying and Storage

Look for them near the baking fruit and nuts, especially heavy in the weeks before the winter holidays, sold red or green and sometimes in mixed tubs. They peak hard in November and December and can be scarce the rest of the year, so stock up in season.

Choose plump, glossy cherries; rock-hard, crystallized ones have dried out. Sealed, they keep for a year or more in a cool cupboard thanks to the sugar.

Once opened, seal them airtight. If they crystallize, a brief warm-water rinse loosens the surface sugar. Recipeland has more than 120 recipes that call for them, nearly all of them holiday baking.

Nutrition

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 1 cherry (NLEA serving) (5g)

Amount per Serving

Calories 8Calories from Fat 0

% Daily Value *

Total Fat 0.0g 0%

Saturated Fat 0.0g 0%

Trans Fat ~

Cholesterol 0mg 0%

Sodium 0mg 0%

Total Carbohydrate 2.1g 1%

Dietary Fiber 0g 1%

Sugars 1.9

Protein 0.0g

Vitamin A 0% Vitamin C 0%

Calcium 0% • Iron 0%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your caloric needs.

recipeland.com/nutrition

Quick facts

Where to find candied cherries: Candied cherries are usually found in the baking supplies section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

Food group: Candied cherries are a member of the Fruits and Fruit Juices US Department of Agriculture nutritional food group.

In Chinese: 蜜饯樱桃
British (UK) term: Candied cherries
en français: cerises confites
en español: cerezas confitadas

How much do candied cherries weigh?

Amount	Weight
1 cherry (NLEA serving)	5 grams

Fruits and Fruit Juices

Apples 1607 Apples, granny smith 280 Apple juice concentrate 68 Apricots 237 Apricots, dried 146 Mixed dried fruit 62 Avocados 441 Bananas 1034 Blackberries 70 Blueberries 462

Recipes using candied cherries

There are 140 recipes that contain this ingredient.

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