And the Best of the Best Above All the Rest

December 30, 2009

Fruit Soup!

I know. I wouldn’t have believed it myself but this traditional Swedish food received nothing but rave reviews from everyone! Swedes, non-Swedes and most impressively children of all ages who had no idea what it was, tasted a scant smidgen of it with frowning suspicion and then came back for more!

I originally stumbled on this recipe when RuthAnn, a facebook friend of Scandinavian heritage mentioned preparing it for her family holiday gathering. I was intrigued by the idea since the Lutheran Church D and I attend has a number of Swedes in the congregation, several of whom moved to the States in their lifetime and return regularly to visit their homeland. Since everyone enjoys a taste of home at Christmas I thought I’d give Fruit Soup a try even though I’m not a fan of dried fruit and prunes in particular. Prunes. Seriously, I’ve always considered them the food of Grandparents, consumed more for their miraculous powers of regularly than for flavor but I’m not too proud to admit when I’m wrong.  Or regular for that matter but that’s a post for another day and another blog.

I found about a dozen recipes online for Fruit Soup, all a little different and so I took what I thought was the best from every recipe and then gathering some additional input from RuthAnn threw the ingredients in the massive seven quart Le Creuset Doufeu D gave me for my birthday and magic happened! The next day I took more than 2 gallons of fruit soup to church along with a table full of other holiday treats and the soup was the first thing to go and was sooooo good and soooooo easy I knew I wanted to share it with you! The problem was when I had made my first original batch I didn’t follow any written measurements but just kept tweaking by tossing in a few more lemon slices, another scoop of brown sugar, another splash of cranberry juice. And so when I remembered that our next door neighbors were going to be having their annual Swedish Christmas Eve dinner in a couple days I used the opportunity to not only do a neighborly thing and take them a pot of the soup but to write down the recipe as I tossed it altogether.

Before giving you the recipe I should probably tell you how to actually serve Fruit Soup. Traditionally Fruit Soup is served either cold or warm as a dessert. You can serve it just as it is or crank it up with a dollop of softly whipped whipping cream. I beg of you, use real whipping cream that comes from a cow rather than someone’s chemistry set. Do NOT allow Cool Whip or any other wannabe whipped topping to defile this amazing treat! It just isn’t the same, no matter what you say.

So yes, serve it in the traditional way as a dessert at the end of a meal but here’s a few other ideas I came up with because I love this stuff and have nothing better to do than obsess about all the ways it can be consumed.

• Reheat it in the morning and serve it over pancakes or french toast with a sprinkle of powdered sugar.
• Serve it cold at lunch over a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
• Make a stunning dessert at dinner by ladling it warm over a slice of homemade pound cake, angel food cake or a hard meringue shell and top with whipped whipping cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

People. I’m talking deeeee-licious. I’m talking show-stopper. I’m talking impress your friends and woo your enemies. Trust me on this. I know you questioned my passion for roasted brussel sprouts in the past and raised your eyebrows at my recipes for Kale Krisps and Cauliflower Candy but this is heaven in a bowl. I promise. Make it, enjoy it, and sing my praises as you bow gratefully in the direction of Stockholm.

And after you make it, let me know what you think. If you can stop eating the Fruit Soup long enough to type that is.

Fruit Soup
Difficulty: Easy Peasy
Time: 30 minutes
Serves: This recipe makes one generous gallon of fruit soup which will serve approximately 16 people one cup each which is a generous portion given the sweetness and richness of the dried fruit.
Calories Per Serving: You don’t even want to know. Really.
Storing Leftovers: There won’t be any but hypothetically, if there were leftovers they should be stored in the refrigerator.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 – 2 …pounds of dried fruit – (I use a combination of prunes, apricots, and pineapple), chopped into bite-size pieces
• 2 ..cups small pearl tapioca
• 1…64-ounce bottles of cranapple juice (you may substitute half the juice with water)
• 4-5 ..cinnamon sticks
• 1…teaspoon ground cinnamon*
• 2…lemons, thickly sliced*
• 1/2…cup Brown Sugar*
• 1…cup raisins
• 1/2…cup currants
• 2-3…apples (tart variety like Granny Smiths), cored and diced into bite-size pieces

Directions:

1. Add the dried fruit, cranapple juice and pearl tapioca to a 5-6 quart saucepan and stirring occasionally, bring to a gentle boil over medium high heat.  The soup will quickly thicken as the tapioca pearls release their starch. As long as the soup remains on the stove top be sure to stir regularly to prevent the sugars from sticking and burning to the bottom of the pot.
2. When the soup begins to boil immediately reduce the heat to maintain a low simmer. Stir in all the remaining ingredients.
3. Continue to simmer for another 10 minutes and then turn the heat source to the lowest setting.
4. Now comes the time to tweak the soup to your personal preference in terms of thickness and taste. Served as a soup the thickness should be similar to a cream soup such as New England Clam Chowder and thicker when served over other foods. Additional water or juice can be added to thin and turning up the head slightly to reduce the liquids will thicken the soup. The soup is best when there’s a balance of tart, sweet, and spicy so level out the flavor with additional cinnamon, brown sugar or lemon to taste.
5. Remove the lemon slices and cinnamon sticks prior to serving.

* The amounts listed in these ingredients are the base quantity to begin with so have a little extra of each for tweaking.

Posted in Apron Adventures