As soon as they are ripe in summer, you can freeze currants in advance. That way you can still have some of the delicious fruit for the rest of the year.
Red, black or white currants grow in many gardens. Among other things, they contain a lot of vitamin C and, with their sour taste, are a great ingredient in sweet pastries. You can just as well use them to make jam or jelly, or add them to your muesli in the morning. Like the other berries, currants are sensitive. Therefore, you should process or freeze them within a few days of picking them.
Cook currants
How to cook the currants for freezing:
Discard unripe or mushy fruit.
Wash the berries. Make sure the water pressure is not too high, as the currants are delicate.
Dry the berries.
Now remove the berries from the panicles. If you do this before washing, the berries will leak juice through the resulting cracks in the skin. You can easily scrape the berries from the panicles with a fork.
Remove any remaining stalks.
Pre-freeze currants
Pre-freeze the berries so that you can thaw them individually later. To do this, place the currants not too close together on a large plate or tray and place it in the freezer for one to two hours. If you don’t have enough space for this, you can also freeze the berries in a jar and shake them carefully after an hour so that they separate.
After pre-freezing, you can put the currants in a freezer box (preferably made of glass) and freeze it. The fruits will keep for up to 12 months.
Defrost currants
Slowly thaw the berries before using them. So they lose little aroma. This works best if you first let the berries thaw in the refrigerator and then thaw them completely at room temperature.
Defrosting the currants will make them a little mushy. You can then no longer use them as well as decoration, for example for cakes. But they are still good for:
Compote, currant jam and currant jelly
currant syrup
Currant cake, in which the berries are baked in the batter
muesli or porridge
milkshakes or smoothies
fruit sauces
Alternative: Freeze currant puree
You can also process the currants into a puree with a little powdered sugar or agave syrup before freezing and freeze it without pre-freezing. Small molds are particularly suitable for this. This way you can defrost the puree in portions.
