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Freezing Strawberries
Answer
Richard Responds:
I don`t think strawberries freeze well on their own, but I have a few suggestions.
The reason they don`t fare well in the freezer is that when they freeze the large amount of water in them turns into thousands of sharp ice crystals which quite literally rip their way through the cellulose cell structure that makes up the main component of a strawberry`s flesh. They look fine all the time they are frozen, but on defrosting all the shredded flesh collapses and you end up with a rather uninviting floppy slush.
However......
If their final use is in something using a lightly cooked fruit mixture, such as a summer pudding mixture, this is not so much a problem. In this case, open freeze on trays and when solid pack into bags, for easy free-flow measuring when needed.
Experiment with freezing in boxes in dry pack caster sugar.
Experiment with freezing in a standard stock sugar syrup.
The most satisfactory way to preserve strawberries is to bottle them (a process not that much in vogue these days, but absurdly easy with an Aga simmering oven). See the Aga Book and try just one jar to see how easy it is. Follow the cold syrup method, with the following processing timings (taken from the 1956 Aga Recipe Book) in the simmering oven of either a two or four oven Aga. Place the jars on a piece of cardboard on the floor of the oven for the following times:
For a full oven of jars, 4 hours
For three or four 2 lb jars, 2.5 - 3 hours.
If any jars do not form an effective seal (you test by removing the screw bands and lifting the cold jar by the lid to check that a vacuum has been formed) the contents must be consumed immediately. For spring clip jars you have to assume that the vacuum is there and would only know the sterilising process was ineffective when you come to open the jar and there is no vacuum present, in which case you must discard the contents. Don`t let this put you off: it is actually really easy and gives excellent results. Trust me and try it. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
Richard
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Can you please tell me a good way to freeze Strawberries?