Candied fruit

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Candied fruit or Glacé fruit, also known as crystallized fruit, has been around since the 14th century. Whole fruit, smaller pieces of fruit, or pieces of peel, are placed in heated sugar syrup thereby absorbing the moisture from within the fruit and eventually preserving it. Depending on size and type of fruit, this process of preservation can take from several days to several months.^[1]

The continual process of drenching the fruit in syrup causes the fruit to become saturated with sugar, thereby preventing the growth of spoilage microorganisms.^[2]

Fruits which are commonly candied include dates, cherries, pineapple, and ginger.^[3]

Recipes vary from region to region, but the general principle is to boil the fruit, steep it in increasingly strong sugar solutions for a number of weeks, and then dry off any remaining water.^[4]

The high sugar content of finished glace fruits inhibits the growth of microorganisms, and glace fruits will keep for a number of years without any additional methods of preservation.

Fruits that hold up well to being preserved in this manner include cherries, plums, peaches, apricots, pears, starfruit, pineapple, apples, oranges, lemons, limes and clementines. Angelica is rarely seen in western cooking except as a glace fruit.