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Protecting
Light-Colored Fruits
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.
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Did You Know?
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Drying
is one of the least exact ways to preserve foods. The length of drying
time will depend on the equipment used and the humidity of the air. In
the past, recommendations for preparing fruit leather from both fresh
and cooked fruit have been given. However, because of increasing
concerns with bacteria such as Escherichia coli O157:H7 (E. coli
O157:H7) being able to survive the
drying process if present, it’s best to heat the fruit to 160°F
before drying. Preheating
also stops the maturing action of enzymes in the fruit, helps preserve
the fruit’s natural color and speeds the drying process.
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