October 19, 2018

Oven Dried Longan Fruit 自製龍眼乾

chinese, dragon eye, homemade, Oven, Dried, dehydrated, Longan, Fruit,  自製, 龍眼乾, 烤乾, 龍眼
By Published: 2018-10-19
The funny thing is that I like the luscious lychee fruit more than its sedate cousin the longan dragon eye fruit.  But, turn that around when it comes to these fruits in dried form, cuz I love, love, love dried longan fruit more than anything!  

The fresh longan fruit, a small berry like fruit with a hard shell encasing a translucent sweet white flesh, is delicious and all that but, man oh man, when it is dried it becomes so sinfully sweet, in a natural way, deliciously chewy and just so absolutely yummilicious that it is better than candy!  

Yes, that's right, Oven Dried Longan 龍眼乾 is even better than candy (except chocolate of course) and that's how we eat them in our house, as a naturally deliciously sweet and healthy fruit candy.

homemade, Oven, Dried, dehydrated, Longan, Fruit,  自製, 龍眼乾, 烤乾, 龍眼

The best thing is that Oven Dried Longan is super easy to make at home.  The only thing you need is an oven.  It's a nifty trick, drying food out with an oven and we've experimented and made all sort of yummy edibles with our oven like Chinese Candied Kumquats, Candied Lemon Peel and even Homemade Pork Jerky!

homemade, Oven, Dried, dehydrated, Longan, Fruit,  自製, 龍眼乾, 烤乾, 龍眼

The only real work in making these delicious dried fruits is in the shucking and the de-seeding.  It's easy to shuck the longan shell with a quick twist, just follow the instructions in our Longan Dragon Eye Fruit post.

homemade, Oven, Dried, dehydrated, Longan, Fruit,  自製, 龍眼乾, 烤乾, 龍眼

To remove the large seed pit of the Longan fruit, slip a finger in along one side of the seed and the longan's flesh should split in half easily.

homemade, Oven, Dried, dehydrated, Longan, Fruit,  自製, 龍眼乾, 烤乾, 龍眼

Which should make it easy to remove the seed pit entirely while leaving the longan pretty much intact.  Takes a bit of time the shuck the skins and de seed it all but the result of having delectable longan fruit candy all year round is well worth the effort.

homemade, Oven, Dried, dehydrated, Longan, Fruit,  自製, 龍眼乾, 烤乾, 龍眼

The pitted and shucked longan should be placed on a baking tray in one layer.  As you can see I have over piled my baking sheet due to the fact that I have the smallest oven in the world and only one working shelf in that said oven.

The final step is pretty simple.  Just stick your sticky, wet fruit into a very low temperature oven and let it slowly, slowly cook for hours.  As long as the temperature is kept low, the fruit will dry out and not bake.  

As this is not an exact science, depending on the size and amount of your particular fruit, do be sure to check on the fruit every couple of hours.  When the fruit is dry to the touch and chewy on the inside, it is ready.  Don't wait too long or it will become hard, which is nice as well but chewy is best.  

And that's it!  Pretty simple way to preserve fruits.  All kinds of fruits can be dried by this same method.  The only variation will be in the time of the long bake. Enjoy your Dried Longan Fruit!

homemade, Oven, Dried, dehydrated, Longan, Fruit,  自製, 龍眼乾, 烤乾, 龍眼
Dried Longan Fruit Recipe
自製龍眼乾
Prep time:  Cooking time:

Ingredients:

  • 3 lbs fresh longan 龍眼

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 150°F (65°C).  Peel and deseed the longan.  

Line baking tray with parchment paper, place longan in an even layer and set in oven for 6-8 hours.  Check the fruit at 2 hours intervals.  The fruit will first shrivel and then slowly dry out.  

When the fruit in completely dry to the touch but still flexible and chewy it is ready.  Remove from oven and let cool completely.  Store in air tight container.

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