How do I dry fruit at home so it keeps?

Drying preserves by taking the water out until nothing can grow in what is left. It is the oldest method there is and it is genuinely safe at home for fruit, because you can see and feel when the water has gone. The step almost everyone skips is conditioning, and that is the step that decides whether the jar is fine in March.

Safety

What you'll need

• A sharp knife or a mandoline
• Oven with a low setting, or a dehydrator, or an airing cupboard
• Wire racks or dehydrator trays
• Lemon juice for pale fruit
• Clean dry jars with lids

Step by step

1. Choose fruit that is ripe but not soft.Apples, pears, plums, apricots, figs, grapes, bananas, strawberries and rhubarb all dry well. Overripe fruit dries into something dull and sticky; underripe fruit dries hard and sour.
2. Cut it evenly, and thinly.3 to 6mm slices. Even thickness matters more than thinness, because a batch dries only as fast as its thickest piece and any piece that stays moist becomes the mould in the jar.
3. Treat pale fruit against browning.Apples, pears and bananas go brown from oxidation. Dip the slices in water with the juice of a lemon for a minute before drying. This is cosmetic, not a safety step.
4. Lay the pieces out with space around them.On wire racks so air can pass underneath, in a single layer, not touching. Overlapping pieces stay wet where they touch.
5. Dry low and slow with air moving.50 to 60°C, which on most domestic ovens means the lowest setting with the door propped open on a wooden spoon so the moisture can escape. A fan oven is better than a conventional one. A dehydrator is easier and cheaper to run, and an airing cupboard works for thin slices over a few days.
6. Turn the pieces once or twice.Especially anything on a solid tray. Six to twelve hours is typical for apple rings; plums and apricots take longer because the skin holds water in.
7. Test properly for dryness.Take a piece out, let it cool completely — warm fruit always feels softer — then tear it. It should be leathery and pliable with no visible moisture at the tear and no bead of juice when squeezed. Anything sticky or damp inside goes back in.
8. Condition the batch for a week.Pack the cooled fruit loosely into a clean dry jar, about two-thirds full, and shake it once a day for a week. This evens out the moisture between drier and wetter pieces. If any condensation shows on the glass, the batch is not dry enough — dry it again.
9. Store airtight, cool and dark, and check it.Sealed jars in a cupboard keep six to twelve months. Look at the jars a fortnight in for any sign of moisture or mould. Anything mouldy goes in the bin — the whole jar, not just the affected pieces.

Tips

• Dried fruit stored in the freezer keeps far longer and stays soft. It takes almost no space and removes the mould question entirely.
• Home-dried fruit is chewier and less sweet than shop-bought, which is usually sulphured and partly rehydrated. That is not a fault.
• Do not oil the trays. Oil goes rancid on dried fruit and shortens its life considerably.
• Fruit leather is the same process with purée spread thinly on a lined tray, and is a good use for fruit too soft to slice.

Common mistakes

• Sealing the jar the moment the fruit comes out of the oven — The batch is never uniformly dry, and warm fruit gives off moisture as it cools. Sealing immediately traps that moisture, which is what turns a good batch mouldy six weeks later. Cool, then condition.
• Drying at a high oven temperature to speed it up — Above about 70°C the outside of each piece hardens into a case while the middle stays wet — case-hardening. It looks done, is not, and moulds from the inside.

Questions people ask