Light-colored fruits,
especially apples, apricots, peaches, nectarines and pears, tend to
darken
during drying and storage.
This process, called oxidation, robs the fruit
of flavor, color and vitamins A and C. To prevent this, you must
pretreat
the fruit in one of the following ways:
Drying Bananas
Cut bananas in
1/4-inch
thick slices. Dip into orange juice, pineapple juice or lemon juice.
Dry
until leathery or until crisp, whichever you prefer.
Drying
Apples
Peel and core the
apples; slice into thin rings. Coat the slices with a strong ascorbic
acid
solution to hold the color of the apples and dry. The apples that are
best
for drying are late-autumn or early-winter varieties such as Baldwin,
Ben
Davis, Greening, Jonathan, Northern Spy, Spitzenbury, Winesap, Rome
Beauty,
Red and Golden Delicious, and Russets.
Note: For
long-term storage and to insure nice color of slices, it is better to
treat
the fruit with sulfer.
