Macerating

What the sugar is doing

Sugar on the surface of cut fruit draws water out of the cells by osmosis. That water dissolves the sugar and becomes a syrup, and the fruit softens as it loses turgor.

Two useful things happen at once. The fruit becomes softer and more yielding without any heat, so it keeps its fresh flavour. And the syrup that forms is intensely flavoured — it is fruit juice with sugar in it, not sugar water.

Acid does something similar and adds brightness. Alcohol extracts aroma compounds that water cannot, which is why a splash of a spirit or a fortified wine transforms macerated fruit out of proportion to the quantity.

Macerating against marinating

Macerating

Usually fruit, usually with sugar. The aim is to soften and to draw out juice.

Marinating

Usually meat, fish or vegetables, usually with acid, oil and aromatics. The aim is flavour, and sometimes surface tenderising.

Overlap

The words are used loosely and often interchangeably. Onions in vinegar could reasonably be called either.

Time

Maceration is minutes to hours. Long marinades of hours or days are common.

Heat

Neither involves any.

The basic method

1. Cut the fruit into even pieces. More cut surface means faster maceration.
2. Scatter over sugar — a rough guide is a tablespoon or two per punnet, and it is entirely to taste.
3. Add acid: a squeeze of lemon, lime or orange juice, or a splash of vinegar for a savoury version.
4. Add aromatics if you want them — a split vanilla pod, black pepper, mint, basil, a strip of citrus zest, a spoonful of a spirit.
5. Stir gently and leave at room temperature. Twenty minutes is enough for soft fruit; an hour for firmer.
6. Stir once or twice as the syrup forms.
7. Serve with the syrup. Pouring it away throws out the best part.

What it is good for

• Underwhelming strawberries, which is the classic use and the one that converts people.
• Any soft fruit — raspberries, peaches, nectarines, plums, figs.
• Hard fruit, given longer — apple, pear, pineapple.
• Before making jam. Macerating fruit in sugar overnight draws out juice, which can be boiled down separately so the fruit needs only a short cook. This is how whole-fruit jams keep their shape.
• Onions for a salad or a burger — sliced thin with vinegar and a pinch of sugar for twenty minutes, which takes the raw harshness out.
• Dried fruit in spirit or tea before baking, which plumps it and stops it stealing moisture from the crumb.
• Not for fruit that is already perfect, which needs nothing at all.

Common questions