With good care, the currant bushes bear many berries - too many to consume them fresh. Just freeze the fruit. Then you can still enjoy delicious currants in winter.

What you need for freezing

  • Fresh currants
  • plastic strainer
  • paper towels
  • wooden board or plate
  • freezer bag or freezer container

Prepare currants for freezing

Whether white, black or red currants - they are all frozen in the same way.

Only use very fresh, ripe berries. Sort out any fruit that is already a bit wrinkled or even mushy. You must also carefully remove leaves, insects and other foreign objects.

Wash and stem

Rinse the currants in a sieve under running water. The water jet should be as soft as possible because the berries do not tolerate pressure.

Then place the panicles on a piece of kitchen paper and let them dry on it.

Only after washing are the berries detached from the stems. If you were to remove the panicles beforehand, the currants would lose too much juice when washed.

Freeze individually

Set the freezer to the lowest setting a few hours before freezing. If your appliance has a shock freezing program, use this for it.

Place the dry currants individually on a board or plate and let them pre-freeze individually in the freezer for a couple of hours.

This will prevent the berries from freezing together and later thawing as a block. Individually pre-frozen currants are better to take if you only want to use part of the fruit.

Freeze in a bag or freezer

After pre-freezing, fill the fruit in freezer bags or containers. Seal the bags tightly so that the berries don't lie around loosely in the freezer later.

They can now be stored in the freezer for up to a year as long as the refrigeration has not been interrupted.

If you thaw the berries, you have to do it carefully. Don't take more currants out of the freezer than you can use right away. Put the frozen fruit in the refrigerator.

Consume thawed currants quickly

Thawed currants are no longer suitable for raw consumption or as a cake decoration. They are then too soft and lose their juice.

Cook compote from the berries or juice them to make jelly or juice.

Currants that have been thawed should be consumed as soon as possible. They should not be kept for more than a few hours.

tips and tricks

Currants grow on so-called panicles. The berries can be easily removed from the stalks with a fork. Take hold of the top of the stalk and run the fork tines along the panicle. However, it cannot be completely prevented that small stalks remain on the berries. If that bothers you, the attachments have to be removed by hand.

The garden journal freshness ABC

How can fruit and vegetables be stored correctly so that they stay fresh for as long as possible?

The garden journal freshness ABC as a poster:

  • as a free PDF file to print out yourself

Category:

Vegetable garden