Step 1: prepare the pears.

First you need decide on the variety of pears! It is important to use fruit for drying pears that is stored for no more than two days. It is better to choose varieties with dense pulp. And it happens that in such pears hardened areas, like pebbles, come across. The ingredient should be very ripe and sweet. Such varieties as "Forest Beauty", "Victoria", "Ilyinka", "Lyubimitsa Klappa" are perfect for drying.
So, first of all, we rinse each pear well under running water and put it in a deep bowl. The ingredient must be peeled with a knife from the peel and core. To do this, by weight, holding it with your hand, cut off a thin layer of peel with a knife, then cut the fruit into two halves and remove the seeds in a circular motion.
Meanwhile, put a large pot of purified water on a high heat and add sugar to taste, stirring from time to time with a tablespoon, so that it completely dissolves. In order for our pears to dry faster and be sweeter, they need to be boiled for some time in boiling water. Due to this, we can gain a lot of time! When the water boils, make a medium heat and gently put the main component into a container with your hands. You can boil pears in parts. up to 15 minutes, until they are soft... We check the degree of doneness with a fork. As soon as they are ready for further processing, we immediately take them out with a slotted spoon and transfer them to a deep bowl. You don't need to drain the water, it is perfect for fruit compote or jelly, because the pear is so fragrant.
We spread the ingredient on paper kitchen or cloth towels so that it cools down and excess moisture leaves it.
And now, on a cutting board, using a knife, cut the fruits into small pieces. There are several options for how to shape the pears. You can simply cut them into chaotic pieces. You can also grind the ingredient across the fruit into small half-rings or along, thick no more than 5-7 millimeters... And relatively small pears can generally be left unchanged, however, they will dry much longer than pear pieces. In general - this is according to your wishes - as you like best and how much free time you have in stock.

Step 2: dry the pears.

So, in the kitchen you can hear the pleasant sweet aroma of pears and everything is ready for further cooking. Therefore, put the pears on a baking sheet in one layer and turn on the oven. We put a baking dish with our ingredient in the oven and dry it at a temperature no more than 55-60 ° С to prevent the pear pieces from cracking and bubbles. We cook them in this mode about 2 hours... After - we increase the temperature in the oven up to 80 ° С and continue to dry until, when pressing with a wooden spatula on the pear pieces, juice will not stand out from them. It may take about 8-12 hours... Therefore, be sure to stir the pears with a spatula every two hours. During the drying process, such a fruit will lose more than 70% of moisture, therefore, out of the quantity - 4 kilograms, we will get only 1 kilogram of dried pears... Another feature of the readiness of the product is that when pressed on it, it is very soft, but at the same time it becomes very elastic! Attention: if you see that the pears begin to darken ahead of time in the oven, turn the fire again at 55-60 ° С and dry the ingredient at this temperature, stirring it from time to time. After the allotted time for cooking such a fruit, turn off the heat and remove the baking sheet from the oven so that the pear pieces cool to room temperature. They can be left in this state for another two days in some quiet, dry place so that they completely dry out. And only after that we transfer the dried pears to a clean dry jar and close the lid tightly so that moisture does not enter it. Pear drying is complete!

Step 3: serve dried pears.

The most interesting thing is that such an affordable and tasty fruit in ancient times saved people from various diseases due to its properties! Pear helps the heart and muscles work well, especially after physical exertion. And, if you put a piece of fresh pear on the surface of the skin, it can relieve allergic inflammation. Simply put - this is a miracle fruit! Therefore, you can serve it to the table in its natural form. For example, instead of candy, children can be given a piece of dried pear to chew. Uzvars from such an ingredient are very tasty for holidays such as Christmas or Easter. A dried apple and even prunes are perfect for such a compote. It is especially useful to eat dried fruits during the cold season, as they give the body an additional supply of vitamins and nutrients! Enjoy your meal!

- - To prevent the pear from darkening during the drying process, it can be dipped in a solution with citric acid. To do this, after processing in boiling water, we transfer the pear pieces to a container with a previously prepared solution. For 1 liter of purified water, we need 5-10 grams of citric acid. To do this, stir the water with a tablespoon until the acid is completely dissolved in it and only then place the pears in the container. We keep the fruit for 10-20 minutes. Then we shift it with a slotted spoon to the prepared surface so that the liquid is glass from the ingredient.

- - You can dry pears in the old grandmother's way. To do this, we need a calm, quiet place in the sun right on the street. A cottage or a private courtyard with a garden is perfect for this. Everything is very simple! Immediately after we cut the ingredient into smaller pieces, place them on a baking sheet or large flat sieve and place directly in the sun for the whole day. And only at night we bring the pears into the room, covering them with plastic wrap or a bag. We do such actions for 2-3 days and on the fourth we rearrange the baking sheet with pieces of pears in the shade on the street and dry for another 2-3 days. Just do not forget to bring pears into the room at night anyway.

- - You can soften pears before drying in another way! Rinse the ingredient well under running water and cut it into small pieces. Then carefully put the slices in boiling water and cook them for 5-7 minutes.

The pear is a very juicy and sweet fruit. It is rich in sugar and always pleases with its taste and juiciness. Unfortunately, keeping the fruit fresh for a long time will not work, as they begin to overripe and become soft, after which they rot. How to be fruit lovers? Drying the product is a good option. But not everyone knows how to dry pears correctly. Although this method allows you to preserve a large harvest and makes it possible to feast on delicious, vitamin-rich slices of dried pears all year round.

Product preparation

Suitable varieties should be selected for drying. As a rule, late-ripening and winter varieties are poorly suited for this, since they are usually soft and too juicy. In order to dry, you need to choose pear varieties with a firm texture and a sweet rich taste. There is no need to wait until the fruit is overripe and becomes soft, just as you should start drying immediately after harvesting, without waiting for the fruit to ripen and soften.

Advice! You should not use pear varieties with an astringent sour taste. They do not tolerate heat treatment and are not at all suitable for this type of workpiece. It does not matter in what way a pear of this sort was dried, it will not bring pleasure.

First of all, the fruits must be thoroughly washed and dried. If it is assumed that the dried pear will be whole, then this preparation can be completed. If you plan to dry the fruit in pieces, then you need to cut it. For this, the fruit is cut in half. Cored and cut into wedges. Their width should not exceed one centimeter, otherwise the pear may not dry out completely.

Often the flesh of the sliced ​​fruit darkens during drying. To avoid this, soak the chopped product in a 1% solution of wine vinegar. And immediately before drying, the pieces are dipped in boiling water for two minutes.

Dry the fruits

In order to dry the prepared fruits, housewives offer several options. Which one to choose and how to dry pears depends on the capabilities and preferences of each housewife. But no matter how dried the pear is, it is important to do it carefully in order to prevent the dried fruit from rotting.

Natural drying

The main essence of the process is that the pieces of fruit must be laid out on a flat surface. If a nasty or a tray is used, then they should be covered with parchment paper.

After that, they must be placed in a place well-lit by the sun. At the same time, it is important that the place is not dusty and windy. It is necessary to choose such an arrangement so that the fruits are illuminated by the sun as much time as possible during the day. In the evening, the fruits must be brought into the house. It is necessary to dry pears in the sun for two days, after which they are dried in a darkened room with good ventilation for another two to three days.

Quite often, a method is practiced in which the slices are put on a thread and dried in a suspended state. For greater safety of the product, no matter how dry the pear is, it can be fumigated with sulfur dioxide to avoid the formation of mold.

We use the oven

It is not always possible to dry pears naturally. In this case, the option to dry the pear in the oven is perfect.

The prepared fruits are laid out on baking sheets and placed in an oven preheated to 60 degrees. At this temperature, the fruits must be kept for the first two hours, then it is raised to 80 degrees and the pieces are waited for to decrease in size. Then the temperature regime drops again to 60 degrees. At this level, it is maintained until the pears are completely dry.

Advice! It should be ensured that the kitchen area is well ventilated, since the pears will have to be dried for 12-16 hours. During this time, the oven will warm up the room and burn out a lot of oxygen. If the fruits are dried in the oven as a whole, the duration of the sushi is increased to 24 hours.

We dry in the microwave and electric dryer

It is worth noting that a dried pear can even be microwaved. Moreover, this process will take the least amount of time. How to dry pears in this appliance?

In the microwave, fruits are dried in portions, and the preparation of one portion will take no more than three minutes. There is a risk of overdrying the product, so use this method with caution. You need to set the microwave power to 200 W and place the product in it for two and a half minutes. If this time was not enough, then you need to repeat the process within 30 seconds.

Another kitchen appliance is an electric dryer. Using it you can dry a lot of fruits at the same time. The drying temperature is set at 70 degrees. It is advisable to turn the product over and swap the trays to evenly dry the pears. The time it takes for the dryer to prepare the pears ranges from 15 to 30 hours, depending on the quantity and size.

You can determine that the fruit is ready by color. The pear will turn into a pleasant brown hue. At the same time, it will be elastic and not brittle, it will succumb to the fold and not violate the integrity.

The desire to feel warm on winter days, and again to feel the aroma of summer is not alien to everyone. Modern methods of harvesting fruits and vegetables for the winter are limited to housewives, making jams, compotes, pickles, "freezing". Such an old preparation method as drying is extremely rarely used, but in vain. A large number of useful trace elements are stored better in dried fruits. How to properly dry pears at home for the winter, we suggest remembering today.

Selection and preparation of pears for drying

The decision to provide yourself with dried fruits for the winter requires some knowledge. For harvesting, choose ripe, slightly harsh fruits with a dense skin. The permissible amount of seeds in a pear is moderate. Careful implementation of all stages of processing and drying, as well as the choice of a suitable variety, will allow you to get a quality product. When drying, some housewives add sugar. In this case, the result will be a sweet dried fruit that can be used as a dessert.

The following varieties are considered suitable for dry harvesting:

• Victoria;
• Lemon;
• Forest beauty;
• Clapp's favorite;
• Zaporizhzhya;
• Ilyinka;
• Bergamot;
• Fragrant.

Important! It is forbidden to use frozen, wormy, rotten fruits with damage. Discard such fruits immediately.

After cutting out unsightly places, use them for food (cook compote, make fruit puree).

The selected fruits are washed well with water and wiped dry.

Small fruit can be dried whole. Cut the largest into slices no more than 1 centimeter in size, removing the seeds.

There is a method when, before drying, the processed fruits are dipped in boiling water for 15 minutes, cooled, then cut and dried.

Forest wild pear. Cooking nuances

Forest pears, wild among the common people, differ somewhat in taste from garden varieties. Fruits have a small appearance and may be slightly bitter. Wildlife processing is similar to the processing of garden pears. They are often dried whole. To preserve the presentation during drying, they are treated with a solution of tartaric or citric acid. The pear is blanched in boiling water for about five minutes. The drying process is the same, the only difference is in the harvesting process.

The forest pear is harvested when it begins to fall from the trees. The fruits are put in a container and wait for them to turn brown. When lying down, pears of this color lose their astringency and bitter taste, become aromatic and sweet. Dried fruits from forest pears have a more interesting taste and strong aroma.

Drying pears at home for the winter

Dried fruits from a garden or wild pear are a pantry of easily digestible carbohydrates, vitamins and microelements. Their peel contains a lot of nutrients necessary to maintain immunity in winter and spring. One has only to make the supply with the gifts of nature, and then no diseases are terrible. The thing is that, in comparison with fresh, these dried fruits have a long shelf life and "live" without problems until spring. Pear fruit is rich in glucose, sucrose, fiber, acids, pectin. A large amount of vitamins B1, C, P, PP, carotene make the fruit unique. Proper drying of pears does not allow the loss of useful properties.

How to dry pears at home

Several options are used:

• naturally - in the fresh air;
• in an electric dryer;
• in a microwave oven;
• in the oven.

Natural drying method is less expensive and preferable. No electricity costs, no need to waste time on temperature control. All your labor costs come down to moving the pallet with sliced ​​fruit indoors in the evening, and outside in the morning. Therefore, if you are able to take advantage of natural sources of heat and ventilation, use this method.

Tip: To prevent the sliced ​​fruit from losing color during drying, you can sprinkle it with lemon juice.

Drying pears in the fresh air

Place the cooked fruit in a thin layer on a baking sheet or serving. Place the container in a place where the sun's rays fall. In the evening, bring the pear into the room, since the humidity of the outside air at night rises significantly. Cover the fruit container with plastic wrap. Perform this manipulation for two days. Then transfer the pear to the shade. The place should be well ventilated. In the shade, the pear is kept for four days.

Some owners use a modified natural drying method. The dried pear slices are pressed into a thin layer with the help of two boards, then strung on a thread with a distance of 1 millimeter. The thread is suspended, and the pear is dried in this form.

Drying in the oven

When choosing this drying method, expect that the minimum time for the oven to operate is about fourteen hours. The principle of laying out chopped fruits on a baking sheet is preserved, as in the first case. It is necessary to select the correct operating mode of the oven - drying. The maximum temperature regime should be set to 60 degrees. At this temperature, the fruit is in the oven for about 2 hours. After this time, the temperature can be increased by 10-20 degrees and drying can be continued. As the fruit begins to shrink, the temperature should be lowered to 50 degrees. At this temperature, dried fruits are brought to full readiness. The time taken to dry is influenced by the pear variety and size. Drying of whole fruits will take about a day, slices - about eighteen hours.

Drying pears in an electric dryer

Immerse the pears prepared for drying in boiling water for a few seconds, taking out the pear with a slotted spoon and quickly cool it in cold water. Such a shock bath is necessary for the fruit to prevent browning. After the excess liquid has drained off, the pear is placed on a pallet and sent to an electric dryer. The temperature in the dryer is set to about 70 degrees. The pieces should be turned over from time to time. The drying process takes from fifteen hours to the meshes. Dried fruits can be considered ready when they acquire a golden color. When bent, they should not break; when pressed, the structure will be soft and elastic.

Drying pears in the microwave

Drying pears in the microwave is considered one of the fastest cooking methods. The whole process takes no more than 4 minutes per serving. Important for this method is to ensure that the pears that are cut into slices or cubes do not dry out.

So, place the prepared fruit on a plate previously covered with a linen or cotton cloth. Select the oven program for 2 minutes and 200 W. After the time has elapsed, turn the fruit over and repeat drying with the same parameters. Repeat the process until the product is completely ready. When dried, moisture from the fruit evaporates, and they acquire a beautiful golden hue.

Making winter stocks from the abundant fruit harvest of summer and autumn, it is worth giving preference to the method that will maximize the preservation of the set of vitamins and useful microelements - drying. You can dry any fruit, including pears. It is worth drying pears on your own, because when purchasing dried fruits in a store, you cannot be sure of the quality of the raw materials and storage conditions.

The benefits of dried pears

Dried, they retain all the benefits of fresh fruit. A rich set of vitamins, macro- and microelements allow using dried pear for medicinal purposes:

• It copes well with chronic coughs, is used as a disinfectant and antipyretic agent.
• Decoctions of dried fruits help in the treatment of sore throats and seasonal colds due to the antibacterial properties of pears.
• Potassium, stored in dried fruits, is a good helper for the proper functioning of the heart and keeping blood vessels in good shape.
• A small amount of sugars makes dried pear fruits useful for people who are watching their weight.
• Iron, which is rich in dried pears, helps with tachycardia and dizziness.

Selection of pears for drying

• When choosing pears for drying, you need to know that the more intense and brighter the aroma of fresh fruits, the more useful they are in dried form.
• The best fruits for harvesting are pears with a thin peel, which have a dense and elastic flesh. The following varieties are recognized as leaders for processing and drying - Lesnaya Krasavitsa, Bergamot, Zaporozhye and Limonka.
• Choose low-yield fruits for drying that have hard blotches. Astringent pears are not suitable for harvesting.
• Fruits with a small seed chamber are more suitable for drying.
• During the drying process, the addition of sugar is allowed if unsweetened fruits are taken for processing.

Fruit preparation

1. Before drying, fruits are sorted according to the degree of ripeness. It is best to dry slightly unripe pears.
2. Pears damaged by rot or disease must be discarded. They are not suitable for drying.
3. Green fruits are left to ripen indoors for several days. The main thing is that they should not over-ripe and lose their elasticity.
4. You should not choose watery pear varieties - they are not suitable for drying.
5. Ripe pears must be washed, peeled and seeds removed.
6. To speed up the drying process, the fruits are kept in boiling water for several minutes until soft.
7. For unsweetened varieties, you can dissolve sugar in hot water.
8. After aging in hot water, you must wait until the fruits have completely cooled down and only then cut them into slices and put them in a container for drying.
9. To prevent the pear pieces from darkening, they can be soaked in a 1% citric acid solution.
10. Cut the fruits only lengthwise into strips no more than 1 cm thick.

Features of drying large fruits and wild pears

If you have chosen the fruits of a wild pear for drying, then they are not removed from the tree until they are fully ripe. Only Padans go to the drying room. After harvesting, they are kept until the skin and pulp of the fruit darken and only then they are dried, only as a whole. Such a preliminary exposure of wild pears will remove the bitter taste and astringency of the fruit. At the same time, the wild pear will become a little sweet and gain aroma.

The large fruits of the cultivated plant are cut into small slices. The thickness should not be more than a centimeter. So they will dry out more quickly. The peel should be removed only from hard-skinned fruits. You can also save the seed pod. Dried slices of these unpeeled fruits have a more pleasant taste.

Drying methods

You can prepare pears in the form of dried fruits for the winter by drying them in the sun or using an oven, electric dryer or microwave.

Natural air drying

1. The container with laid out pear wedges should be installed in a sunny place, away from roads, road dust and drafts.
2. You can choose for this a sloped roof of a house or a barn. This will ensure that the fruit is exposed to the sun as long as possible. Slices of pears should be periodically turned over to speed up the process.
3. It will take a couple of days to dry. At night, pallets with pears must be brought into the room.
4. Then pears can be strung on a thread and dried in the sun in a suspended state.

Drying pears in the oven

If bad weather interferes with drying pears in the sun, you can successfully do this in the oven. Here's how to do it right:

1. You will need to put the pears on a special drying tray in one layer and carry out the first drying at an oven temperature of no higher than 60 degrees. So there will be no cracks in the slices of the fruit and the peel will not peel off.
2. After a couple of hours, the temperature needs to be raised to 80 degrees.
3. As soon as you notice that the fruit began to decrease in volume, then the temperature must be reduced again to 60 degrees and continue to dry.

It may take a day to dry whole fruits, while the slices will dry out twice as fast.

Drying pears in an electric dryer

Having an electric dryer in your kitchen appliance arsenal makes pear harvesting surprisingly easy.

1. Acting in accordance with the instructions for the device, place the pear slices prepared according to all the rules on the grids of the electric dryer and turn on the device. The trays with fruit pieces are evenly blown with jets of warm air, and there is no need to turn the fruit.
2. It usually takes 8 hours to cook the finished product at a temperature in the dryer of about 70 degrees.
3. For more even drying, it is recommended to change the places of the grates.
4. If after a specified time the pieces of pears stick to your fingers when pressed, then the drying process should be extended by a couple of hours.

Drying pears in the microwave

The method is perhaps the fastest, but it requires tireless attention so as not to get overdried pear slices or just coals.

It takes several minutes for one laying of pears:

1. The plate for drying must be lined with a linen cloth and the prepared fruit slices (without the core) should be laid out.
2. The optimal cooking time at 200 W is 3 minutes. If necessary, you can dry the fruit for another half a minute - a minute.

Well-dried pear pieces are elastic, do not break when bent and spring a little when pressed.

Storage rules until a new harvest

• You can store home-dried pears in tightly sealed glass jars, or use wooden barrels with a tightly lapped lid.
• A great place for jars of pears would be a place in a dark closet or a shelf in the closet. The main thing is to remove dried fruits away from sunlight.
• When stored in a warm and dry room, dried fruits can be put in linen bags.
• The workpieces should be regularly inspected to prevent them from becoming infected with bugs or fruit moth larvae.
• If the room is humid, then the pears can simply be dried a little in the oven.
• If the workpieces have hardened, then before preparing the compote or other delicacy, you can hold the pears in the steam bath. Saturated with hot moisture, they will again become soft and elastic.

You can choose any option that is convenient for you for harvesting pears for winter storage. You can even grind dry pieces in a coffee grinder and use pear powder for filling into pies or making dough. Winter supplies of sweet dried pears and drinks properly prepared from them will delight both children and adults - they are very tasty and healthy!

In winter, sometimes you really want something summer, reminiscent of a vacation, sun, greenery! Therefore, each jar of jam or pickled cucumbers, compote or jam becomes a precious drop that brightens the cold winter days.

Vitamins for the winter

Dried fruits and vegetables can be another slice of summer. Our distant ancestors knew how to dry pears, apples, apricots. They used the most accessible method - with the help of the sun. Blanks from pears, fruits, berries, vegetables retain a significant part of the nutrients of the original product, do not require special equipment during the preparation process or special storage containers.

Choosing the right pear

How can it be done? Pear blanks for the winter require a thoughtful selection of starting material in compliance with the following rules.

1. Summer and early autumn pear varieties are used, winter varieties are not suitable.
2. It is undesirable to use varieties with an astringent taste - they hardly tolerate heat treatment.
3. Fruits should not be overripe; ripe, juicy, sweet fruits with a dense core are needed.
4. You can also use wild pears, but it should be noted that the fruits must fall from the tree themselves, you should not pick them. Before drying, wild pears need to be air-dried as a whole and start processing after they turn brown - this will save the wild pears from the bitter taste.

Preparing pears for drying

Before drying pears, you need to prepare them. The fruits are thoroughly washed, wiped dry, cut in half, after which they are removed from the core and cut into pieces of approximately the same thickness. When slicing fruit, keep in mind that the thinner the slices are, the less time it will take to dry them. If you want to get dried fruit from quarters or halves of pears, you will have to use the oven, since it is almost impossible to guarantee the complete drying of large pieces under the sun. Pear blanks for the winter usually have a thickness of within one centimeter before drying.

Air drying

The prepared fruits are laid out in one layer on a flat surface both in an open place and in any fairly hot room (for example, an attic, an attic, a summer kitchen). When drying pears in the open air, make sure that the selected place is away from parking lots, garbage cans, animals and other environmentally unfavorable factors.

The process itself takes from several days to a week, since the pears need to be dried before they are completely dry, otherwise mold will appear on them over time. The first days of the pear must be in direct sunlight, later this is not so important. During the entire cooking time of dried fruits, they must be periodically turned over to achieve uniform drying.

Drying pears in the oven

The chopped pears are laid out in one layer on a baking sheet, which is placed in a preheated (60 degrees) oven. In this mode and with the oven door tightly closed, the pears are dried for 2 hours, after which the temperature increases (80 degrees). Further, the fruits are checked for readiness every half hour or hour. Sometimes (with coarsely chopped fruits) the complete process can take up to 24-25 hours of continuous drying.

It is worth using the oven when making dried fruits or not - everyone decides independently. On the one hand, the cooking time of the final product is reduced significantly, on the other hand, most of the vitamins are destroyed at the last stage of drying, moreover, due to too high temperature, the integrity and appearance of dried pear pieces are often violated.

Drying pears in a drying oven

The drying cabinet can be purchased ready-made or made yourself. In the latter case, the walls of the future cabinet are formed from two sheets of roofing iron, to which iron shelves are attached with rails and screws for installing sieves. The floor of the dryer is made of the same material as the walls, with the obligatory presence of at least eight holes of approximately 10 x 5 cm for hot air access. Smaller holes are drilled in the lower part of the cabinet walls - for fresh air access. From the inside to the back wall of the cabinet, under the two uppermost shelves, a U-shaped cartridge (with holes) with a hole in the side wall is attached - a thermometer is inserted here to control the temperature during drying. A lid is attached to the top of the drying cabinet, which can be removed if necessary. Most often, there are (and are made) cabinets 1 meter high and 70 cm wide, designed to accommodate 7 sieves with vegetables or fruits in it.

The drying cabinet is installed on a gas or electric stove (in principle, any heating installation can be used) on horizontally laid bricks with gaps between them necessary for air flow.

During the drying process, the temperature is monitored: it should not exceed 40 degrees; if the product is too wet on the upper sieves - reduce the number of pears on all sieves or the number of sieves itself. In terms of time, this process is comparable to drying in the oven.

And the last thing - no matter how you dry pears, you need to store them in a warm place, preferably near heat sources (this will prevent the appearance of pests) and, of course, in fabric bags. Polyethylene is absolutely not suitable for storing dried fruits. Let dried vegetables and fruits delight you in cold winter.