The dried hawthorn is used in cookery for preparation of stuffings, drinks, it can be mixed with flour for baking of confectionery. The hawthorn is used in traditional medicine at problems with vessels, at heart diseases, at nerve strains. It is possible to prepare flowers and fruits of a hawthorn.
Instruction
1. Collect hawthorn flowers in May, at the beginning of blossoming. It is necessary to collect them quickly until one part of buds faded yet, and another didn't reveal. It is impossible to prepare the flowers of a hawthorn or flowers damp damaged by insects from a rain or dew.
2. Cut off inflorescences of a hawthorn or break them from large pedicels. Stack them in a basket, without stamping. It is impossible to stack a hawthorn in plastic bags, otherwise flowers will be worn out and when drying will fuse. You don't store long a hawthorn, it needs to be dried up as soon as possible.
3. Spread hawthorn flowers a thin layer (no more than 3 cm) on fabric or paper indoors with good ventilation. It is desirable to cover them with a gauze layer from insects. If there is an opportunity, dry up hawthorn flowers in the special dryer at a temperature 40oc.
4. Collect ripe fruits of a hawthorn in September-October before frosts. Break them or cut off all guard with berries by means of secateurs, deleting then the immature or spoiled fruits.
5. Spread out hawthorn berries to a baking tray a thin layer. Place a baking tray in the oven heated to temperature 60oc. Slightly open a door that moisture left. In the course of drying look after berries and mix them that they didn't burn.
6. Determine readiness of berries by the following method. Take a handful of a hawthorn and squeeze in a fist. If berries emit juice which will stick together them in a lump, it is necessary to continue drying. If the lump breaks up to separate berries, drying is complete.
7. Cool a dried hawthorn, remove impurity and fruit stems and pour into paper packets. You keep dry a dried hawthorn, without allowing hit of foreign smells, a mold. An expiration date of dried flowers and fruits of a hawthorn - two years.