Pinterest Test Kitchen: Dried Strawberries

Strawberries are in season for another week or so here in Western Washington so we've been eating as many as we can!  In Charleston we used to go strawberry picking but in April or May!  We seem to be about 6 weeks or so behind the South here as far as crops maturing.

Peter was out of town last week and our sweet neighbors always take such good care of me when he is gone.  They brought over fresh strawberries one afternoon and then returned later that day to mow and edge our lawn.  What a blessing!  They also LOVE our little ones.

Since we had an overabundance of juicy berries I decided to try drying them.  If you are on Pinterest often you've probably seen this picture and if you haven't just search "dried strawberries".  About seventy five zillion people have pinned this one.



It comes from the World Wide Gourmet.  Aren't they beautiful?  They look like candy and that is just what the recipe claims!  It's an easy recipe (so you know I like it!).  Simply halve or quarter the berries and bake in the oven at 210 for 3 hours.

Hmm.

Those directions don't seem too hard to follow.  Here's mine...



Yeah...they look like I charred them on the grill.  The good news is the picture looks worse than they taste.  I didn't cut many of mine because they were small to begin with.  I'm going to try this again and slice them instead of quartering them.  I'm not sure how the website managed to keep them so red but clearly I didn't have the same experience.

As far as taste.  Eh.  They are ok.  They aren't gross but they certainly don't taste like candy!  If you've ever had dried apricots, that is the consistency I was envisioning as these were in the oven baking.  They smaller ones are close to that.  The bigger ones still have a little juice in them even after over 3 hours of baking.

They definitely aren't pretty.  So making these would be for a personal snack and not to serve at a party.

Overall, I'm not mad that I tried it and I will try it one more time but if it isn't successful I won't be trying it again.  I was kind of hoping they'd be so super yummy I could use them as a dessert snack but I'd rather just have a cup of fresh berries.

If you are a strawberry fan I'd just stick to fresh berries, especially if they are in season!  Here is how I like to eat mine...

Quick Balsamic Strawberries

1 cup strawberries
1 to 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1 to 2 Tablespoons goat cheese
1/2 teaspoon sugar

Halve or quarter your strawberries depending on their size.  Mix vinegar and sugar together.  Pour over strawberries and sprinkle with goat cheese.

This is the perfect blend of sweet, savory, salty and tart!  I hope you enjoy!!

Comments

  1. Thanks for showing the reality. We eat ours all up!


    I found you via the Tuesday Talent Show from Chef in Training
    I have linked up bacon and scrambled egg rolls.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love your recipe...sounds delish! I HAVE to try it! :D

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  3. Good to know - Think I'll stick to fresh strawberries too. Visiting from tuesday time out - Have a great week!

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  4. AHA! I figured out how to comment on here....I have a food dehydrator that I've dried apples in. It worked great. Your dried strawberries test made me wonder if they would work better in a dehydrator. I also dried bananas in mine which were ok. I use it most to make jerky.

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  5. Thanks for sharing this, just yesterday I tried to dry strawberries as I had so many of them and mine turned out very black and I only had them in the oven for an hour and a half so I'm not sure what I did wrong. The recipe I used said to slice and sprinkle sugar over them, however I sliced too thin and they stuck to the baking paper! Mine did not taste good. The rest of the strawberries went into a very yummy Strawberry cake!

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  6. I am going to need to try this.. I have a Blog Hop, and I would love it if you would link this post. You can find it at
    http://www.adornedfromabove.com/2012/07/3-face-masks-from-your-kitchen-and.html
    It is called Wednesdays Adorned From Above Blog Hop.
    I hope to see you there. Have a great Day.
    Debi Bolocofsky
    Adorned From Above
    www.adornedfromabove.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's too bad that these didn't work out so well. I was going to try these. Your recipe sounds yummy, I love salty and sweet together. I'll give that recipe a try instead.

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