The fruit picking season ends quickly; the raspberries are gone within three weeks. To keep it fresh until next spring, the berries are frozen, rubbed with sugar, and made into a fragrant and beautiful jelly. Raspberries strengthen the immune system and cell walls, cope with colds, speed up metabolism, and increase hemoglobin. The berries do not lose their beneficial properties; raspberries retain their rich composition in preparations for the winter without cooking. In the best recipes, only sugar is used as a preservative; the berries are not heat-treated.
Features of harvesting raspberries for the winter
If you don’t have a summer cottage or country plot, you can buy fruits at the market or in a store, but the berries must be fresh and juicy, and not wilted.
Preparing raw materials
Rotten specimens are selected separately; they are not suitable for winter preparations without cooking. Raspberries are placed in a colander, washed and dried, spread on paper napkins.
Preparing dishes for cooking
You can freeze berries in plastic containers; they cannot be kept in metal containers, since ascorbic acid evaporates. Glass containers are washed and disinfected by sterilization:
- in the oven;
- over steam;
- in a microwave oven.
The jars are dried. Plastic lids are treated with boiling water.
What to do with fresh raspberries for the winter?
The berries make delicious jam, aromatic jam. To preserve the maximum of useful components, raspberries are not boiled or heat treated.
Ground berries
The fruit mass will not begin to ferment; it will be stored in the refrigerator until winter and more if you take 2 kg of sugar per kilogram of fresh raspberries.
You need to carefully sort the berries, rinse whole specimens through a colander.
When they dry, put them in an enamel bowl and crush them with a mortar so that there are no lumps or pieces left and a homogeneous mass is obtained. The mixture is combined with ¼ teaspoon of sugar, when it dissolves, the same portion is added.
Similar actions are performed until the berries absorb all the sand.
The mixture is infused in the kitchen for 2 hours. During this time, you need to wash the glass container with soda or mustard, disinfect it over steam and lay out the grated raspberries. The jars, sealed with a plastic lid, are sent to the basement.If the preparation is consumed within 2 or 3 months, the amount of sugar can be reduced by 2 times.
Drying raspberries
In order for the berries to retain as many useful components as possible, they are laid out on a wooden board or pallet, covered with a metal mesh and left in the sun. Raspberries need to be stirred 2 or 3 times a day and brought indoors at night, otherwise they will become damp. Dried berries are placed in a plastic container or bag and stored for up to 2 years.
You can prepare raspberries for the winter in the oven with the door ajar or in an electric dryer:
- The berries are washed under the tap and laid out on napkins or a towel.
- When dry, transfer to a metal baking tray lined with compressor or baking paper so that they do not overlap each other.
- The cabinet is heated to 130–135 °C, the door is opened slightly.
- The temperature is gradually reduced.
Raspberries dry in 7–8 hours. The fruits acquire a brown tint, become sweeter, and no liquid appears when pressed.
Jam
From the aromatic berries you can prepare a delicacy that is consumed with tea for colds. Children love this dessert, eat it with ice cream, and add it to baked goods. The raspberries are sorted, the sepals are removed, washed in a colander, dried a little, and transferred to a bowl. Berries are combined with sugar.
After 5–6 hours, when they release the juice, place the container on the stove, after boiling, reduce the heat, cook the fruit mass for 5 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon, removing the foam.
The thick mixture should be poured into a sterile container, rolled up, turned upside down and wrapped in a warm cloth, which should not be removed until it cools.
To make jam from a kilogram of fruit, the same amount of granulated sugar is required.
Freezing berries for future use
Some raspberry varieties produce a harvest at the end of June and in September, but women want to please their household with fresh fruits even in winter.
To do this, the berries are sorted, leaves and debris are removed, and to get rid of bugs, they are soaked in a salt solution, washed under the tap and laid out on a paper towel.
Clean and dried raspberries are placed in 2-3 bags of 200-300 g, secured with an elastic band, sent to the freezer, where they are stored until spring.
Raspberry juice
Summer residents, who have a large area occupied by fruit bushes, not only make jams from the berries, but also try to prepare a concentrated drink, which can be stored well both in the cellar and in the pantry. To make juice use:
- raspberries - 1.5 kg;
- water - 1 glass;
- sugar - 200 g.
The berries are sorted, cleaned of debris and leaves, dipped in a saline solution for a quarter of an hour, rinsed under the tap and poured into a saucepan. Pour water into a bowl and boil the raspberries for 5 minutes.
Cover the sieve with gauze, lay out the softened berries and grind until the liquid and pulp are released. Combine the juice with sugar, put on fire and boil for several minutes. The jars are filled with the finished drink, covered, and sterilized depending on the volume, but usually a quarter of an hour is enough for disinfection.
Raspberry marmalade
A delicacy made from aromatic berries is much tastier and healthier than candy. To prepare and preserve dessert in the form of bright and beautiful marmalade until spring, you need to take:
- raspberries - 1 kg;
- sugar - glass;
- water - 0.5 l.
Selected berries are dipped in a salt solution for 15–20 minutes, thoroughly rinsed under the tap, and dried by placing on a napkin or in a colander. The raspberries are combined with sugar, after a few hours they are placed on the stove so that the mixture boils. A pack of gelatin is poured into water.When the mixture thickens, heat it over a fire, add it to the ground fruits, and boil for a few seconds.
Hot marmalade is poured into a sterile glass container with a wide neck and hermetically sealed with a lid for long-term storage.
Jelly without cooking
You can prepare an airy and delicate vitamin dessert from raspberries without heat treatment by boiling, observing the proportions and sequence of actions:
- The fruits are ground through a sieve.
- Syrup is made from sugar and water.
- Cake is added to the sweet composition, placed on the stove, where it is boiled for a couple of minutes.
- The liquid is passed through a sieve, combined with gelatin, and raspberry puree is poured in.
Remove the jelly from the heat when bubbles form on the surface and fill sterile containers with it. To prepare the dessert, take equal quantities of water and fruits. For 800 g of raspberries, 120 sugar and 60 gelatin are required. Instead of a thickener, you can also use agar-agar, which is used in smaller proportions.
