Candied fruits are boiled in sugar syrup and then dried fruits.
Properly cooked candied apricots can be stored for a long time in the refrigerator on the lower shelf.
General principles for making candied apricots
You can prepare healthy sweets from a large number of fruits and even vegetables: say, carrots, pumpkins or zucchini. Fruits or vegetables, whole or cut into pieces, are boiled in syrup, and then either simply recline in a colander and drain, or dip for a while in saturated sugar syrup, and then dried, for example, in an oven at a low temperature. But it is better to dry them for about a week on the balcony or attic, covering them with dust and gauze.
For storage, some candied fruit can be sprinkled with granulated sugar.
Delicious fruit slices are used, and just with tea as a natural sweet, and in baked goods, and in cereal dishes, cottage cheese, and desserts.
Candied fruits from apricots are made quite simply, compared with how much effort you need to spend on making candied fruits, say, from orange peels, but they are also very tasty and fragrant. To add some sharpness to the taste of candied apricots, spices or citrus fruits are often added to them: lemon, orange, grapefruit or their zest. Syrup for making candied apricots needs a thick one: about 2 kg of sugar per 900 ml of water.
You can store candied apricots in the lower part of the refrigerator (in places intended for storing fruits) or in another cool place (in the cellar, in the garage, if it is not very cold there).
Before proceeding with the preparation of candied fruits, you must thoroughly wash and sort out the fruits; if there is slight damage, they must be removed. It is not worth using rotted fruits to make candied apricots. Then the fruits should be slightly dried and pitted (cut into halves and extract the stone or squeeze it through a small incision, if you are going to then make sweets with nuts.
Recipe 1. Candied apricots "Classic"
Ingredients
Apricots (it is better to take slightly unripe) - 3 kg
Sugar - 3 kg
Water - 1.5 liters
Powdered Sugar - Small Amount
Cooking method
Divide apricots into halves, remove the seed. Prepare syrup in an enameled basin using the indicated amount of water and sand.
After boiling the syrup, put the halves of apricots in it, bring to a boil and cook for about a minute, then remove from heat.
The next day, using a slotted spoon to catch berries from the syrup. Bring the syrup to a boil again, place the apricots in it again and cook one minute as well, then leave for another day.
After a day, repeat everything, but this time do not leave the apricots in syrup, but take them out in a colander, let the syrup drain, and then put the candied fruit on a baking sheet covered with baking paper. Lightly sprinkle with a thin layer of icing sugar, cover with gauze and leave to dry.
Candied fruit is best dried on the balcony. The process usually lasts about 6 weeks.
Put finished products in a glass jar and store in a cool place.
Recipe 2. Candied apricots "Union of ginger"
Ingredients
Sugar - a pound
Apricots - 1 kg
Lemon - one second part of a large
Orange - one second part
Cooking method
Prepare the fruit. Get the seeds from the apricots. Peel citruses, chop the pulp with a knife.
In an enamel container, put apricots and chopped pulp of lemon and orange, pour all the sugar.
Using a wooden or plastic spatula, gently mix the contents and leave for about twenty hours.
Put the apricots in a colander and let the syrup merge.
Place apricots on a baking sheet covered with paper and dry in the oven at low temperature (no more than seventy degrees) for 3-4 hours.
Candied candied fruit, if desired, can be sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Recipe 3. Candied apricots with ginger
Ingredients
Apricots - 1 kg
A piece of ginger the size of an eraser
Sugar - a pound
Water - one and a half glasses
Cooking method
Peel the ginger and cut into thin petals.
Remove the seeds from the apricots. Dip the halves of apricots for a couple of seconds in boiling water (you can use a colander).
From one and a half glasses of water and all sugar to prepare syrup. When it boils, place apricots in it and cook for 5 minutes, then remove from heat, carefully ginger in the ginger and leave to infuse for 12 hours.
After that, lay out the apricots and heat the syrup again until it boils. Put candied fruit and cook for about a quarter of an hour, then immediately remove the fruit into a sieve and let drain - about an hour.
Put sweets on a baking sheet, heat the oven to forty degrees. Dry candied apricots with ginger for literally five minutes.
Remove from the oven, sprinkle with powdered sugar and return to the oven for another five minutes.
Place the cooled candied fruit in a glass jar.
Recipe 4. Candied apricots with nuts
Ingredients
Walnuts - half the amount of apricots (in pieces)
Apricots - 1 kg
Sugar - 1 kg
Powdered sugar - optional
White Chocolate - 100 g (optional)
Cooking method
Choose not very ripe apricots, make an incision on them and squeeze out a stone, trying not to mash the fruit.
Place the apricots in an enameled bowl, sprinkled with sugar and shaken several times. Wait ten to twelve hours and drain the resulting juice into a separate bowl.
Bring juice to a boil and pour boiling into a bowl with apricots.
Soak for five to six hours, drain the juice again, bring it to a boil and pour fruit. Do this just five times.
Apricots out of the cooled syrup and arrange on parchment.
Halve the walnuts (or quarters, if the apricots are not large; then, of course, twice as many nuts will be needed), peel and carefully put inside each candied fruit.
If desired, sprinkle candy with icing sugar, and then, covered with gauze, put in a ventilated room for drying for seven to ten days.
Finished sweets can be decorated by dipping half in white chocolate melted in a water bath.
Recipe 5. Cottage cheese pie with candied apricots
Ingredients
Candied apricots - half a cup or more
Soft cottage cheese of medium fat content - half a kilo
Two eggs
Flour - one and a half glasses
Sugar - half a cup
Vanilla Sugar - Half a Bag
Baking powder - one teaspoon
Powdered sugar - for powder
Cooking method
Separate the squirrels from the yolks and beat them into foam.
Using a mixer, mix the yolks with cottage cheese, sugar, vanilla sugar; You can add a pinch of salt.
Carefully mix the candied fruit, and then the protein foam, acting with a spatula, not a blender or mixer.
Mix the flour with baking powder and gently introduce into small quantities in the curd mass.
The baking dish (it’s better to take a silicone one) is well oiled and put the dough in it.
Put cooked in a hot oven (190 degrees) for about three quarters of an hour.
Readiness can be checked with a splinter: if there are pieces of raw cottage cheese left on it, the pie must still be kept in the oven.
Remove the finished cake from the mold; sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.
Recipe 6. Panforte with candied apricots
Ingredients
Candied apricots - 200 g
Candied fruits from citrus zest (or some other) - 150 g
Flour - 180 g
A mixture of nuts (hazelnuts, cashews, almonds, etc. in an arbitrary proportion) - 350 g
Honey - 180 g
Sugar - a third of a glass (can also be replaced with honey)
Spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom) - all together two - two and a half teaspoons
Dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa) - floor of a standard tile
Cooking method
Make chocolate syrup. To do this, warm the honey and sugar in a water bath (you can add one tablespoon of water), boil for about 2 minutes, then add the chocolate broken into pieces and mix until it dissolves.
Cut the candied fruits and nuts into small pieces, stir in the flour and spices.
Pour the syrup into the dry ingredients and knead the dense dough, as homogeneous as possible.
Cover the glass or ceramic form with oiled baking paper, lay out the mass and compact it tightly. So that the dough does not stick to your hands, they can be slightly moistened with water or oil.
Put on top a sheet of oiled paper cut in shape.
Put in the oven, heated to one hundred and fifty degrees. Oven three quarters of an hour.
Remove the finished cake and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Serve by slicing in very thin slices.
Recipe 7. Lean gingerbread with candied apricots
Ingredients
Flour - 350 g
Sugar - half a cup
Apple or apple-apricot juice - a glass
Vegetable oil - half a cup
Candied apricots - half a cup
Lemon Slaked Soda - Half a Teaspoon
Spices (cinnamon, vanillin, ginger, etc.) - 2 teaspoons
Any nuts - a handful (optional)
Cooking method
Finely chopped candied apricots; chop nuts. Mix with sugar and vegetable oil.
Dilute the mixture with juice, add slaked soda, spices and sifted flour.
Knead the dough.
Grease the silicone mold with vegetable oil and sprinkle with semolina or crackers; pour the dough into it.
Bake at 180 degrees for about an hour, checking the readiness with the help of a speck.
Tricks and tips for making candied apricots
To prepare candied fruits, you need to take not quite ripe fruits with intact skin. The bone should be well separated from the pulp, and the pulp should be dense, not powdery or fibrous.
When preparing candied fruits, you can use not only fresh ginger, but also various dried spices: the same ginger, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and so on, but put them a little so as not to discourage the taste of the fruit.
Candied candied fruit can be dipped in melted chocolate, and then roll in coconut flakes or crushed nuts. It will turn out delicious and natural sweets that can please the whole family.
