Technique Theory: Fruit Candying

The technique for candying fruit is a simple matter of macerating the fruit in syrup and boiling the syrup regularly to increase its sugar concentration. This is repeated until the syrup reaches 75° Brix, at which point the fruit is shelf stable due to the water-binding capacity of the sugar. The main areas of concern in the technique are that the syrup fully penetrate the fruit, thus preserving it, and that the syrup doesn’t crystallize. The former is guarded against by increasing the density of the syrup slowly over time, and the latter is prevented by the addition of glucose syrup during the candying process.