Freezing or preserving raspberries are two ways to enjoy raspberries from your own garden in autumn or winter.
Anyone who has lovingly cared for their raspberries (Rubus idaeus) all year round and can harvest plentifully will of course not only want to eat the sweet fruits in summer. We will therefore tell you how you can preserve your raspberries for the rest of the year. As always, there are pros and cons depending on the method. We'll give you brief instructions on each method below.
Store raspberries in the fridge
Unprocessed, raspberries can hardly be stored for more than a day. If you need your sweet fruit for a cake the next day or the day after, the sensitive berries can withstand a day or two in the fridge, but this is not an ideal way of storing the raspberries, which quickly become mushy and moldy in the fridge . Incidentally, raspberries do best when stored in the refrigerator if they are not on top of each other, but next to each other, for example on a plate or a flat sieve.
Freeze Raspberries
Raspberries freeze very well. Everyone knows the large bags or boxes from the frozen department that are full to bursting with sweet fruit. However, before freezing, you should wash and pre-sort your raspberries. Remove any fruit that shows signs of eating or mold. After washing and sorting, the raspberries should be drained thoroughly and dabbed with a kitchen towel so that no unnecessary ice crystals form when they freeze. Depending on what you want to use the raspberries for, you have two options:
- If it doesn't matter that the raspberries freeze into a small clump, simply place them in an airtight freezer box or bag and place them in the freezer that way. This method is easier and completely sufficient for raspberry sauces, purees, smoothies or shakes, for example.
Tip: Use freezer containers instead of bags. The raspberries are very sensitive to pressure and can be damaged in the bag before they freeze.
- Sometimes deep-frozen raspberries should be easy to portion, for example as a cake topping or to enrich a punch, Bacardi Razz or other cocktails. Occasionally, when baking with frozen raspberries, you want to avoid releasing too much water. In these or similar cases, the freezing option described first is not well suited. Instead, it is advisable to place the berries next to each other on a plate or bowl lined with cling film and place them in the freezer. After a few hours, you take the plate out of the freezer, quickly place the already frozen berries in a lockable freezer box, let the air out of the container and quickly put the box back in the freezer. When the berries are taken out of the freezer over the next few months, they are easy to portion and release relatively little water.
Our tip: Freezing raspberries or processed raspberry products such as puree is a very gentle way of preserving many vitamins compared to boiling. Of course, these can also be lost during subsequent processing (e.g. in the oven when baking a cake or when heating the raspberries to make a sauce). However, if freshly frozen raspberries are slowly thawed in the refrigerator and then used raw for a smoothie, muesli or milkshake, for example, the raspberries still have a high he alth value.
Freezing raspberries: raspberry ice cream or puree
If you like to eat raspberries as ice cream, as a sauce or puree, for example with yoghurt, a quark dish, a mousse or a pudding, you can freeze these processed instead of the raw raspberries. Incidentally, creamy raspberry ice cream made from whipped cream, egg yolk, vanilla sugar and lightly pureed raspberries can also be made without an ice cream maker. After freezing, the cream just needs to be stirred every few hours to keep the yolk from settling. After stirring two or three times you will notice that thedesired consistency is reached. The ice cream can then be kept for several months. Ice cream sticks can also be made from pureed raspberries or from yoghurt mixed with raspberries. Raspberry puree or sauce can be placed in a freezer box and thawed or slightly reheated for dessert. If you only need small amounts, you can freeze the puree or sauce in an ice cube tray and, once frozen, pour the cubes into a container or plastic bag. These cubes are easier to portion later.
Preserving raspberries
Like almost every sweet fruit, the raspberry is easy to preserve. Before preserving, however, the same applies here: wash well and pre-sort. Sprinkle the raspberries with plenty of sugar and let it work for one to two hours. You can then divide your now even sweeter raspberries into mason jars. But be careful: only fill the jars no more than two-thirds full, so that there is still enough room to expand while preserving.
You can use pure sugar water to fill the jars or refine the whole thing with a little raspberry syrup. As soon as you have portioned all the fruit and filled all the jars with the preserving liquid, close the jars tightly and boil them down for an hour.
Our tip: Of course you can also use raspberries to make jelly or jam. The procedure is similar. In this case, the fruits are also pureed and jam sugar is used instead of the normal sugar. If necessary, bothersome raspberry seeds can also be removed before preserving by passing the raspberries through a sieve.
Drying raspberries
Dried and dehydrated fruits (and vegetables) are becoming increasingly popular. Quite a few hobby gardeners and nutrition-conscious people have discovered this type of preservation for themselves and bought a dehydrator for this purpose.
Unfortunately, drying is not a suitable way of preserving raspberries. With a water content of around 80%, the raspberry is a very juicy fruit, with only the skin and seeds remaining after drying. So-called freeze-dried raspberries, which are sometimes found in muesli, for example, are produced using a technically complex process that is unfortunately difficult to replicate at home.
As you can see, there are countless ways to preserve the delicious fruits for the time after the raspberry season. With the wide range of dishesYou can prepare it with frozen or boiled raspberries - in addition to the delicious raspberry jam - you will certainly never lose your appetite for the aromatic berries.