This Vintage Martha Stewart Recipe Makes Candied Fruit Totally Easy

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I love hosting dinner parties, but I hate host anxiety. To counter this, I’m always secretly looking for recipes that are simple, beautiful, and impressive.Ina Garten and Martha Stewart, she’s two chefs and definitely a great dinner party host. , have mastered these types of recipes (I don’t know technically). in the meantime I haven’t been to their dinner party yet, but give me time), and since my mom recently unearthed her copy interesting (1982), vintage Martha’s book on throwing together the perfect gathering, I looked it up for advice and found Martha’s simple tips for making an appealing fruit plate-you of fruit in glasse.

What is Gracefruit?

Gracefruit is essentially raw fruit coated with a glaze of sugar to give it a spectacular reflective sheen. used for TangleApplying this candiing technique to seasonal fruit yields elegant results, especially as they appear dotted around cheese boards. Benefits: The sweetness of the sugar coating can give out-of-season fruit a helping hand in terms of flavor.

To glacé the fruit, make a melted sugar syrup and carefully soak the fruit in it. end. A thin coating of sugar cools within minutes, glistening and clinging to the surface of the fruit. very simple.

martha’s way

Martha’s recipe uses strawberries and green grapes, but I happened to have plenty, so I used fresh cherries. We highly recommend fruit with easy-to-grasp stems, as the fruit will be dipped in melted sugar above 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Cherries, grape clusters, and strawberries are all easy to hold and soak. Stemless ones can also be skewered and soaked. Whatever your favorite fruit, be careful to get most of the sugar out, as large chunks of candy aren’t fun to chew.

The first step is to prepare the fruit. Wash, dry and make sure it is at room temperature. The goal is to get the sugar to adhere smoothly to the fruit skin. It can lead to potentially dangerous steam splatters, strange cold spots that lower the temperature of the syrup. case scenario), small bubbles that slightly detract from the gloss of the glasse.

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Once the fruit is dry and ready, make a hot sugar syrup. Use a small, deep saucepan and at least 1 cup of sugar to 2 tablespoons of water. Martha’s recipe uses 2 cups of sugar to cover a few bunches of grapes and a pint of strawberries. You don’t use all the syrup, but you do want a pool deep enough to soak the fruit quickly and easily. You have to do it quickly so that it doesn’t happen.

Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat until the steam stops (as all the water has evaporated) and the bubbles slowly begin to grow. If you’re not sure, use a candy thermometer to check the temperature. The recipe suggests soaking the fruit once the syrup reaches 265 degrees Fahrenheit. This is called the “hard ball stage” in candy parlance. Soak each fruit just long enough to coat the outside and place on a greased baking sheet to cool.

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Didn’t like the candied surface of the fruit coming out. The hardball stage is great for sticky, chewy candies like caramel. I love caramel, but this is different. When you chew the fruit, the sugar immediately sticks to all your teeth.Cherries also stuck each other It would be horrible in a dinner party situation. Instead, I found that cooking the sugar to the “soft-crack-hard-crack” stage worked better for the cherries. will be The sugar was crunchy rather than chewy and melted in your mouth. The plating process has also been improved. Hard crack sugar is not very sticky unless it gets damp.

The last change I suggest is Chill fruit on a greased clothes rack After soaking.Despite my best attempts, some sugar was still pooled At the bottom of each cherry when placed Above Baking tray lined with parchment paper.drying rack approved i shake off Quickly coats excess sugar and keeps coating thin and smooth as possible.

With those minor editsthis preparation technique is dazzling: a An attractive way to offer the bounty of summer fruits.If the idea of ​​completely covering a fruit with candy hurts your teethyou can simply Pour the syrup over the fruit instead.Arrange the fruits Up sprinkle on parchment paper Drip some sugar syrup over them. The result is a shiny crumb that looks like it’s been done. fresh harvest wet with dew morning.