Preservatives and Candied Fruit
I’ve received several questions on what preservatives go into commercially-made candied fruit. The reason: because most home-candied fruit doesn’t keep as well as the commercial stuff, which means it’s not as good for applications like long-aged fruitcakes. I don’t know them all offhand, however the main one is sulphur dioxide. There’s plenty on that topic here.
The only thing that happens to my home made peel is that it dries out too much. But I make it a bit differently to yours; I use a series of increasingly less dilute syrups over a period of days, which allows the sugar to permeate the peel very well. Nothing nasty can grow if there is enough sugar all the way through.
That’s a full-on glacé! Very nice…
– Joe
… so not to belabor the point but this is something I’ve been intrerested in for a long time. Everything that Bronwyn said agrees with the “non-Joe Pastry” research I’ve done. It makes perfect sense but I have not been able to achieve that at home. So I asked a commercial maker of canided fruit and here is their answer for the longevity of their product; hope you find it as interesting and informative as I did:
“Thanks for purchasing our Fruit Cake Mix. We have a 2 year Shelf Life on our product as long as it is stored unopened in ambient temperature . Our products may not be on your store shelves year round but you can always order our products on line.
We preserve our product with 1/10 of 1 percent of Benzoate of Soda, Sorbic Acid and Sulphur Dioxide. Feel free to contact Paradise Fruits if you have more question.
Regards,
Tom Perryman
Quality and Regulatory Affairs Manager
Paradise, Inc. Fruit Division”
Interesting…thanks Brian!
– Joe
Oh, and speaking of storage. No matter how vehemently stated the “Do not freeze” warnings are, I do just that with great success. 🙂
I generally do the same, and with no real problems. Though I sometimes get some extra weeping.
– Joe