Recipes

From Desserts by James Martin

James says “I first saw these being made in a bakery in France when I was there on work experience from college. The fruits are steeped in sugar syrup for several days, but require very little effort to make.”

    500g cherries, stoned
    Granulated sugar

Method

Place the cherries into a pan and just cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer gently until soft but slightly firm.

For each 500g fruit allow 350ml syrup. Make this by combining 250ml of the water in which the fruits were cooked with 200g sugar. Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved.

Place the cooked fruit in a single layer in a shallow dish and pour over the warm syrup. Cover the dish and leave for 24 hours.

The next day, drain the syrup from the fruit and measure into a pan. Add 30g sugar for each 300ml syrup and bring to the boil. Pour over the fruit, cover and leave for 24 hours. Repeat this twice – each time adding an additional 40g sugar to the syrup.

On the fifth day, drain the fruit, return the syrup to the pan and add 100g sugar for each 250ml of syrup. Bring to the boil, add the fruit and boil for 2 minutes. Return to the dish and leave for 12 hours. Then repeat this step. The syrup should be like thick honey.

Drain the syrup and arrange the fruit in a single layer on a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Leave to dry.  Store in an airtight box between layers of waxed paper.