How to freeze cherry plum: all freezing methods

What is cherry plum?

Cherry plum is a thorny fruit tree that reaches a height of up to 10 meters. Belongs to the plum subfamily. The fruits are small drupes, up to 3 centimeters in diameter. Their color can be yellow, pink, red and almost black.

Methods for freezing cherry plums for the winter

Whole cherry plum berries with pits

Perhaps the easiest way is to freeze the whole cherry plum along with the seeds.

To do this, the fruits are washed under running water and dried thoroughly on paper or cotton towels.

In this case, you should immediately inspect the berries for damaged or rotten specimens. Only ripe, firm, dent-free fruits should go into the freezer.

Dry cherry plum is laid out on a flat surface, a cutting board or tray of suitable size is ideal for this, and placed in the freezer for literally a couple of hours. This time is enough for the berries to freeze slightly.Now you can put them in a sealed bag and put them back without frost.

Frozen cherry plum with pits is used to prepare compotes. A video from the channel “Culinary recipes with photos and videos - “A Matter of Taste” will tell you how to prepare compote from apples and cherry plums

How to freeze pitted plums

The preliminary preparation of cherry plum is the same as in the previous recipe. The only difference is that before putting the fruits in the freezer, the seeds are removed from them. To do this, cut the clean berry in half with a sharp knife and remove the core.

The halves are also pre-frozen in order to later obtain a crumbly freeze.

This preparation is very convenient to use for baking or decorating desserts. At the same time, when using frozen cherry plum as a sweet filling, preliminary defrosting is not required.

Watch the video from Galina Petetskaya - How to separate the seeds from cherry plums

Cherry plum with sugar

Place a clean food bag into the container, inside which pitted cherry plums are placed in a dense layer, at the same time sprinkling it with sugar. This workpiece can be lightly compacted.

The container is packed on top with the edges of the bag or covered with a lid. Once the workpiece is completely frozen, it can be removed from the container, packed tightly and put back in the freezer.

Cherry plum puree

To puree cherry plum, it must first be freed from the skin. To do this, the fruits are blanched for a minute in boiling water, after making a cross-shaped cut at the base. After this procedure, you can easily remove the skin and then the seeds.

The purified fruit mass is punched with a blender until it has a homogeneous consistency.The puree is then placed into disposable plastic cups, small containers or ice-freezing trays. The cups are tightly sealed with cling film, the containers are hermetically sealed, and the puree in ice trays is pre-frozen, and then removed and placed in a separate bag.

Cherry plum with honey

You can freeze a delicious dessert made from cherry plum and honey. To begin with, puree is made from cherry plum using the method indicated above, and then a few tablespoons of liquid honey are added to the fruit mass. If the product is candied, it must be melted in a water bath. The cherry plum and honey are placed in portions into containers, tightly packed and sent to the freezer.

How to store and defrost cherry plum

The shelf life of cherry plum in the freezer is 10 – 12 months at a temperature of -16ºС. To know exactly what is in the container, the container is marked before being placed in the chamber. To avoid changes in the taste properties of the product due to saturation with foreign odors, frozen cherry plum must be hermetically packaged.

The product must be defrosted slowly, first in the main compartment of the refrigerator on the lowest shelf, and then at room temperature.