About Freezing Fruits and Berries

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From the Joy of Cooking: Choose firm, sound, uniformly sun ripened fruit.
[Pears and bananas do not freeze well]. It is not essential to use sugar
but it is often preferable. To sugar fruit, place it in a shallow tray.
Just before you pack, sift the sugar over it til evenly coated. Don't let
the mixture stand or the sugar will draw the fruits' juices. When packing,
allow some room for expansion on freezing.
Table 1
No sugar is required for these fruits.
Apples and plums should be immersed briefly in a solution of 3 Tbl lemon
juice or 1/4 tsp Ascorbic acid to 1 qt water and drained to prevent
browning. Blueberries should be steam blanched 30 sec to a min to keep
skins tender.
Apples Blueberries Cranberries
Currants Gooseberries Loganberries Melons
Pineapple Plums Prunes Rhubarb Raspberries
Table II
Use 1 LB sugar for the following:
5 lb apples* 5 lb blackberries 4 lb blueberries* 3
lb sour cherries* 3 lb currants
4 lb dewberries 3 lb gooseberries 3 lb sliced
peaches* 3 lb pineapple 3 lb plums* 4 lb rhubarb,
diced 4 lb raspberries 4 lb strawberries, whole or crushed
*These fruits require a 1/2 tsp Ascorbic acid crystals per 5 lb sugar to
prevent oxidizing and browning. [Ascorbic acid is Vitamin C].
About Syrup
These sirups may be made in advance and chilled before combining with the
fruit. For light syrup use 1 3/4 c sugar to 1 pint water. You can use up to
1/3 corn syrup for sugar. Bring to a boil to ensure complete dissolving and
then chill. Allow at least 1/3 c syrup to each 1 1/2 c fruit making sure
that it is covered. Add lemon juice or Ascorbic acid to the syrup for those
fruits that need them as per the table above.
Freezing Berries
Fragile berries and cherries should be washed in ice water to firm them.
And any commercial or suspect fruit should be washed to clean them. Drain
well on paper towelling. After culling, hulling and stemming they are ready
for freezing with or without sugar. Blanch blueberries to soften skins. If
whole strawberries are packaged without sugar, prick them with a fork to
release the air. Unsweetened raspberries may be frozen in a single layer on
trays and packaged after freezing to keep them whole and uncrushed. This
way they will weep less if thawed and used whole as garnishes.
Freezing Large Fruits
Sort them carefully, remove pits, cores and stems and pare where nec-
essary. Treat fruits that tend to discolor, such as apple, peaches and
apricots with the following: lemon juice or Ascorbic acid as above or use a
syrup with added ascorbic acid as above. If these fruits are packed in
combination with citrus fruits this step may be skipped.
Pears do not freeze well.
Freezing Purees
Some fruits, such as plums, prunes, avocados, papayas, mangoes, persimmons
and melons keep better as uncooked purees. Bananas should not be frozen.
Either freeze unsweetened or with 1 c sugar per 1 lb fruit.
Freezing Juices
Apple, raspberry, plum, cherry and grape juice freeze well as do ciders.
For each gallon add 1/2 tsp Ascorbic acid or 2 tsp lemon juice. Cherries,
plums and grapes have better flavor if cooked first as there is flavor to
extract from the skins. Raspberries are best frozen whole with sugar and
the juice extracted after they are thawed.Fruit fir jelly may be frozen
unsugared and the juice extracted later.
Extracted from The Joy of Cooking
Posted to MM-Recipes Digest by "Rfm" on Aug 09, 98

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---------- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.05

Title: Accordion Treats
Categories: None
Yield: 1 Servings

2 Sheets; (1-yard) heavy-duty
-foil
3/4 c Margarine or butter;
-softened
3/4 c Sugar
1 ts Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 c All-purpose flour
1/4 ts Salt
1/2 c Chopped walnuts; if desired

Source: Best of the Bake-off (1957 Grand Prize Winner!)

Heat oven to 325F. Fold 1 sheet of foil in half lengthwise. Fold the
double- thickness foil crosswise into 1-inch pleats to make an
"accordion-pleated" pan. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat with
second sheet of foil.

In a large bowl, beat margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Add
vanilla and eggs; beat well. Add flour and salt; mix well. Stir in walnuts.
Drop 1 rounded teaspoon of dough into each fold of foil. (Dough spreads
during baking to form 4 1/2 to 5 inch long cookies.)

Bake at 325F for 18 to 26 minutes or until golden brown. Remove cookies
from foil; cool completely. Turn foil over for second baking.

Posted to JEWISH-FOOD digest by syschwartz@juno.com (Sarah J Schwartz) on
Dec 1, 1998, converted by MM_Buster v2.0l.