Seedless Raisins

Seedless raisins are raisins with no seeds in them. If a recipe just calls for raisins, assume it means seedless. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed these days to buy raisins with seeds in them.Even though nearly all raisins sold now end up seedless, some are produced from grapes that had seeds. These will have had their seeds removed before drying, making them “seeded” raisins (though to be more accurate, they ought to be called “de-seeded” raisins.) Recipes from the 1800s using raisins will include instructions to the cook to “seed the raisins” before starting in on the actual recipe.

Most raisins now, however, are produced from “seedless” grapes, usually Thompson Seedless grapes. This both helps ensure that the consumer doesn’t get any raisins with seeds in them that might have been missed during a de-seeding process, and eliminates the producer’s cost of having to seed them in the first place.

Most seedless grape varieties in the United States derive from crosses between Thomson Seedless and Black Monukka.

Many seedless raisins aren’t in fact seedless: the seeds are there, but are so undeveloped that they are undetectable.

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