Dried barberry is a recipe for preparing it for the winter at home, preserving the composition and beneficial properties of barberry as much as possible.

There are many ways to prepare barberries for the winter; I want to talk about drying - drying the berries.

For our homemade barberry preparation we will need:

– barberry fruits – 1 kg.

– sugar – 500 gr. (divide by two).

Syrup per 1 kg. masses:

— Water – 350 gr.

- Sugar - 400g.

How to dry barberry berries.

We will select ripe, dry and clean fruits (without remains of stalks and sepals).

Each sorted barberry berry needs to be pricked with a needle.

The fruits prepared in this way should be covered with half of the granulated sugar prescribed according to the recipe (250 g), and allowed to stand for 18 hours at a temperature of at least 20°C.

The released juice must be drained (not poured out completely, but transferred to another container), sprinkle the berries again with the remaining sugar and repeat the standing procedure.

Drain the juice from the berries again. Both portions of the resulting juice can be boiled and canned separately, or can be preserved by mixing with sweeter juice of plum, apple or pear.

After draining the juice, pour the remaining berry mass with boiling sugar syrup and leave for 6 minutes at a temperature of 80 °C.

After this, the mass needs to be cooled and the syrup separated from the berries using a sieve. Place the candied fruits on a baking sheet and dry in the oven at 80°C for twenty minutes.

Place the slightly cooled dried berries into a sieve and, covering the top with gauze, set them to dry directly in the sun for another 3-5 hours.

Transfer well-dried dry berries to glass jars for storage.

Using this simple recipe for preparing barberry for the winter, the resulting dried fruits can be eaten simply as a healthy delicacy, or you can add them when cooking jelly, you can cook a sour, aromatic compote, or even add it to pilaf or meat.