Freezing Fruit
It’s the time of the year when I’m lucky enough to be given plums, lots and lots of purple tinted plums!
A friend of mine has a few fruit trees in her garden; pear, apple and plums, and each year I leave her kindly garden with bags filled with a mix of all of them.
The fruit aren’t those perfectly shaped pieces that I usually find in the supermarkets at this time of the year, but gnarly, pock marked and often bruised, but always full of the real flavour of the fruit.
Fruit and flavours that remind me of my childhood, the irregularity of each fruit bringing memories of climbing trees and throwing down my precious spoils to whichever of my sisters had gently bullied me into climbing the tree in the first place.
Ready at the bottom to catch whatever is left after I’ve push my share into my mouth.
Given bags full of mouth-watering textures of sweetness and freshness that I know I want, but may not be able to use - or eat – straight away always leaves me with a bit of a dilemma.
How many can I eat in one sitting, revelling in the freshness of the fruit, versus how to keep them to use and cook with for another time?
The solution!
Freeze them, freeze them all and bring them out when I really want to use them in tarts, crumbles and jams over the coming months.
Don’t let others fool you into thinking that freezing fruit is difficult, it may be a bit fiddley and time consuming, but difficult it is not.
Go on, give it a go and enjoy your sweet life!
In bags ready for the freezer
What You Need
Fresh Ripe Fruit of Choice – See Tip Box
Freezer bags – See Tip Box
Oven Trays – See Tip Box
A single layer on the tray
How It’s Done
For soft or hard fruit, the principles and steps are the same:
1) Wash and dry the fruit- See Tip Box
2) Cut in half or quarters
3) Take out the stones if freezing stoned fruits or take out the core if freezing a hard fruit.
4) Lay the fruit, in a single layer on a tray – See Tip Box
5) Open freeze the fruit (sit the tray in the freezer without any covering) – See Tip Box
6) Freeze until frozen but no more than 2 hours, any more than this may leave the fruit with freezer burn
7) Transfer the frozen fruit to freezer bags,
8) Take out all of the air and seal the bag
9) Label with what it is and the date
10) Place in the freezer until needed.
Make sure all the fruit is completely dry before freezing
Tip Box
Type of fruit – The freezing method is the same no matter which fruit is used. Hard or soft fruit, it’s just the removing the core or the pit that is different
Freezer bags – It’s important to have the correct size freezer bag for the amount of fruit being frozen.
Oven Trays – I use metal oven trays to place the fruit into the freezer.
Wash and dry fruit – It’s important to make sure all the fruit is completely dried otherwise ice crystals will form on the outside before the inside is frozen
Size of fruit – If at all possible, try to keep the cutting of the fruit consistent, and don’t forget to portion the fruit to the shape you would like to use it. I sort of make it easy on myself and cut the fruit on the larger size. So more often than not I portion the fruit in halves.
One layer – Layering the fruit in a single layer onto the tray, stops the fruit sticking together and allows the fruit the chance to freeze at the same speed.
Open Freeze – Open freezing means to lay something into the freezer without a bag so that the item is open to the element.
