What Is Glazed Fruit?
Glazed fruit is candied fruit that is preserved in a sugar syrup and commonly used in sweet confections. To prepare glazed fruit, ripe fruit is heated in a sugar solution. As the heating process continues, the fruit is transferred to more highly concentrated sugar solutions, until it becomes plump and the water content is replaced by syrup. This sugar syrup preserves the fruit so that it can be stored for up to a year.
Glazed fruit is also referred to as candied fruit, crystallized fruit, or glace fruit.
How Is Glazed Fruit Used?
Glazed fruit is perhaps most widely recognized for its use in fruit cakes. Recipes for these holiday cakes usually call for a combination of diced assorted fruits such as glazed mixed peel. Candied fruit is also commonly used in preparations of the Italian sweet bread panettone, or to add a colorful, mosaic look to cookies, pastries, and biscotti. For a scrumptious tropical treat, pineapple upside down cakes are often topped with glazed red cherries and rings of glazed pineapple.
