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Freezing Fruit

July 23, 2014 By sue 2 Comments

Fruit in general are incredibly easy to freeze. Many can just be frozen as is.  Just wash quickly in cold water and freeze either whole or cut into pieces as desired.  The shorter the time from picking to freezing, the better the flavour, colour and nutritional value of the frozen fruit.  To free-flow the fruit, spread them uncovered on a baking tray and freeze until solid then transfer to a plastic bag, remove air and seal.  This makes it much easier to use however much you want later and the smaller pieces thaw quicker.

Plums - halved and de-stoned
Plums – halved and de-stoned
Feijoas - peeled and diced
Feijoas – peeled and diced
Whole free-flow blackberries
Whole free-flow blackberries

P1040164If you prefer them sweeter, then sugar can be added but I don’t unless I absolutely have to.  The book I have says that “most fruits have superior flavour and colour if packed with sugar. Use enough sugar with the fruit to give the sweetness required.  The usual proportion is one cup of sugar to five cups of fruit.”

If you have fruit that discolour easily (e.g. apples, apricots, feijoas, peaches) and you want to be able to thaw and eat them raw then you will need to pack them with a syrup and some ascorbic acid (about 1 1/4 tsp per litre of cold syrup). If you are going to cook them anyway then I find that you don’t need to worry.  You can also cook fruit before freezing to prevent discolouration but it should be slightly undercooked.  There are the most common ways but you can also add lemon juice, citric acid or tartaric acid  (these will add tartness to the fruit).

To make a syrup pack, dissolve sugar in water and let cool.  Choose whatever level of sweetness you prefer.

  • Light syrup – 1 cup sugar to 3 cups water
  • Medium syrup – 1 cup sugar to 2 cups water
  • Heavy syrup – 1 cup sugar to 1 cup water

Place the fruit in a container and cover with syrup allowing about 2.5cm headspace for expansion during freezing.

Regularly in my freezer are whole frozen unpeeled bananas; free-flow halved and de-stoned plums and often stewed plums; free-flow blackberries, raspberries and blueberries; stewed apple; free-flow peeled diced or halved feijoas.

Fruit such as plums can simply be frozen whole if you don’t have time to de-stone them – you just have to fish the stones out when you thaw and cook them later on.

Passionfruit pulp can be packed into ice cube trays or other containers.

Citrus can be be juiced and frozen in ice cube trays or in the very handy Glad ice cube bags.  You can zest them first and freeze that too.  With lemons and limes you can freeze them whole or cut into halves or quarters with seeds removed – making it easy to add them to your gin and tonic.

 

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Filed Under: Kitchen, Preserving Methods

Comments

  1. Laurie Sanders says

    April 26, 2019 at 5:20 pm

    I saw an article on freezing sliced persimmon. Was this for the soft or firm persimmon. I have the firm variety. The tree will produce a whole crop all at once – all ripe together meaning I can;t eat them all and will give 3/4 away – so freezing at least some of those would ensure I can enjoy them for a few months perhaps.

    Reply
    • sue says

      April 26, 2019 at 6:08 pm

      I haven’t tried freezing persimmon slices but you can just freeze them whole with quite a successful result.

      Reply

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Life’s Bounty is about all the things I enjoy experiencing, creating, and sharing. Join me as I travel in search of new experiences; coax more produce from my backyard in Auckland, New Zealand and preserve the harvested bounty; and try my hand at making anything from cider to jewellery to cards to gift packs of soap.
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