Vitamin storehouse: 10 recipes with dried fruits

If you are a fan of New Year's baking, you have already tried baking both German stollen and traditional English Christmas cake - Chadeyka has the most detailed recipe for it. Today is another version of the same pie with dried fruits and nuts, straight from England.

I've been waiting for weeks for this day - the day when I bake “that pie.” It has always been and will be a day practically free from any other activities. A fruit pie for twenty people is not something that can be squeezed in among other worries.

No pudding or fruit filling simmering in a pan will fill the kitchen with such a cozy aroma as a baking Christmas cake. This smell contains all my dreams and ideas about an ideal home. The best thing a day spent baking can give you.

Christmas cake has its own special magic. Snowdrifts of snow-white powdered sugar. Pagan holly sprig. The crackle of the glaze under the knife blade, then a soft sigh as the knife sinks into the viscous marzipan layer, and the fruit filling crunches with an abundance of grains. What a pie! Soft dough with the aroma of burnt sugar. A dense layer of raisins, sultanas and cherries. And an irresistible desire to collect every last crumb from the plate with your fingers.

Christmas cake: lasts a long time

Christmas cake has virtually no history of its own. Most surviving accounts refer to the cake eaten on Twelfth Night. Beans and various little things were hidden in his dough, designed to bring good luck to the one who found them in the coming year. To my regret, this ritual has long been no longer held in high esteem in Britain.

The recipe for a pie with fruit filling and icing is in many ways reminiscent of Christmas pudding, which, in turn, comes from fruit porridge with prunes. The pie gained popularity in Victorian times - with the Queen herself among its fans - for its ability to maintain freshness and flavor throughout the festive season. The perfect treat for any unexpected guest. The same cannot be said about sponge cake.

We may have Puritan Oliver Cromwell to thank for the existence of Christmas cake. Poor fool, he decided that everyone's favorite tradition of baking a pie at the end of the Christmas holidays - January 6 - was indecently luxurious. So he banned it, so the cost of the birthday cake was carried over to Christmas.

What is Christmas cake made of?

No one ever eats the whole pie. This luxurious multi-story structure, without which the holiday cannot be considered successful, is usually eaten in stages. The layers of dough, marzipan and glaze are carefully separated and eaten separately, unceremoniously ignoring some of the contents.

I consider myself one of the few who eat pie the way it was intended - in one bright, varied piece. The crunchy glaze is so hard it slightly scratches the roof of your mouth; then a soft layer of almond paste with the consistency of apricot jam; and the dough is tender, mahogany-colored, interspersed with berries.

Unfortunately, trying to make the pie less unhealthy won't work. Giving up sugar, butter, icing means giving up Christmas itself. The whole point of Christmas cake is that it is special - we only eat it once a year. This is a whole event. Such a pie should be festive, something extraordinary - after all, in fact, no one really needs it. Turn it into something no more fun than a bowl of granola and all its magic is gone. What should you stock up on?

Sugar. Traditionally, Christmas cake is made with light brown soft sugar that is moist to the touch. It gives the dough a deep, warm caramel flavor along with the ability to retain moisture for weeks. (Dip your fingers into regular white sugar and it will feel dry. Do the same with light brown sugar and you will feel how moist it is, sometimes so much so that it can be squished into a ball, like a piece of fudge or a snowball.)

Butter. I usually use salted butter or lightly add unsalted butter to bring out the sweetness of the pie. A piece of butter should be slightly softened (you can simply take it out of the refrigerator for an hour) before whipping it with sugar into a delicate coffee-colored cream. Soft butter will mix with other ingredients much faster and easier, not to mention the fact that they won't fly all over the kitchen. A stand mixer with a paddle attachment is best for this purpose.

Grape. The soul of the recipe is raisins, sultanas, currants - dried grapes that give the necessary shape and sweetness to our pie. Each piece always contains many times more fruit than dough. In the traditional plum pudding recipe, the lion's share belongs to the currant. The pie, which was originally a dish for those who could not afford an oven or sowing grapes, uses larger, juicier raisins and sultanas.

Whatever the size and color of your dried fruit, it is traditional to leave it overnight in a mixture of brandy and orange juice.

Candied fruit. Ideal: a freshly cut piece of whole candied citrus from an Italian grocery store (they appear in November, often hanging straight from the ceiling in crisp plastic bags). The candied rind that you cut from a whole fruit yourself will be much juicier and more impressive than the sour, hard shards from a package labeled “candied fruit.” Its shades are captivating - variations of orange, gold and champagne, like stained glass pieces caught in the frost. Candied fruits give the dough a bitter taste of orange jam.

Cocktail cherries. Chances are you couldn't eat a cocktail cherry even if you tried. If the sticky, slime-like syrup these cherries are preserved in doesn't put you off, their incredible ability to taste sweeter than sugar itself will definitely give you pause. But in the depths of the fruit and nut pie, bright cherries confidently play their role as a juicy note in the mass of dried grapes.

Nuts. The nuts add a very nice texture to the cake. The most commonly used are Brazil nuts and almonds, which are peeled and roasted before being added to the dough. It's best to grind the nuts yourself, as the finished petals from the bag are often surprisingly tasteless.

Spices. In the past, spices were strongly associated with wealth and inaccessibility. Whole wars broke out because of them. Fortunes were made from them, destinies were broken because of them.

Spices are a depth of flavor with a touch of magic. They are always used ground in the pie - no one wants to bite through a whole clove. Cinnamon, nutmeg and a mixture of spices symbolize the gold, frankincense and myrrh that the Magi offered to the baby.

It is their presence in the recipe - not very necessary from the point of view of most people - that distinguishes a Christmas cake from ordinary baked goods. Treating a guest with a piece of carefully decorated pie is like offering a guest a gift, something special, not cheap in terms of preparation and effort.

Irish bread with dried fruits recipe

This Irish raisin bread recipe differs from others in that the dried grapes are pre-soaked in very strong tea overnight. And this is the only “difficulty” in its preparation. Baking time is 1 hour 40 minutes and 15 minutes for cooling, after which you have a delicious sandwich with butter or jam in your hands, if your household doesn’t have time to grab the bread before that.

What you will need:

Raisins – 225 grams
Tea, very strong, chilled - 240 milliliters
Self-rising flour - 260 grams
Brown sugar - 200 grams
Cinnamon - half a teaspoon
Nutmeg - a quarter teaspoon
Egg - 1 piece, lightly beat
Oatmeal, not instant (the grains should be thicker)

What to do:

Place the raisins in a container with strongly brewed and cooled tea, and leave to simmer overnight.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius with a rack in the middle position. Grease a rectangular baking dish and dust with flour, shaking off excess.
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, beaten egg, raisins and tea. Stir until smooth and uniform so that there are no lumps, and pour into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the top with oats. Bake the bread until browned, about an hour and 40 minutes. Spend another 15 minutes cooling. We're ready to start!

Nigel Slater's Christmas Pie Recipe

The inside of the dough is golden, the color of toasted almonds. Lighter than my mother's pie - dark as molasses. I use more sultanas than currants, as well as dried apricots and dark figs. I prefer fruits with a brighter taste, more sour than regular raisins. I also take toasted halves of hazelnuts and the right candied fruits - light lemon and darker orange. My pie turns out textured, with crunchy inclusions of nuts and fig seeds.

This recipe has been tested countless times - not only by me, but also by my readers and friends. Every year I receive dozens of photos of a freshly baked pie, fresh out of the oven, with that feeling of joy and relief perhaps familiar to all cookbook writers—when a recipe you wrote succeeds in someone other than yourself.

Like many others, this recipe was first published in the Observer newspaper. Then, a year later, in my first book, The Kitchen Diaries. It's based on my mother's recipe, written down in ballpoint pen on a piece of blue lined Basildon Bond paper and who knows how it ended up in the bowl of an old mixer.

For 1 pie with a diameter of 20 cm:

butter – 250 g
light muscovado – 125 g
dark muscovado – 125 g
hazelnuts (without shell) – 100 g
mixture of dried fruits (prunes, dried apricots, figs, candied fruits, cocktail cherries) – 650 g
large eggs - 3 pcs.
chopped almonds – 65 g
mixture of raisins, sultanas, currants and dried cranberries – 350 g
brandy – 3 tbsp. spoons + a little for soaking
juice and finely grated orange zest
finely grated lemon zest
baking powder for the dough - ? teaspoons
wheat flour – 250 g

You will also need a 20cm deep springform cake tin lined with baking paper lightly greased with butter.

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl from time to time using a rubber spatula. Toast the hazelnuts in a dry frying pan until light brown, then cut each nut in half.
While the butter and sugar are creaming into a cappuccino-colored mixture, cut the dried fruit into small pieces, removing any hard “legs” from the figs. Place the eggs in a small bowl, lightly beat them with a fork and add them to the butter-sugar mixture in several additions, whisking continuously. (If the mixture curdles, add a little flour.)
Gradually add chopped almonds, hazelnuts, dried fruits, a mixture of raisins and cranberries, add brandy, zest and orange juice. Mix flour with baking powder and carefully pour into the resulting mass. Place the dough in the prepared pan, smooth the surface and place in the oven.

Description of preparation:

Dried fruit pie is easy to prepare for those who are familiar with this dough.
In principle, this is a matter of experience and there is nothing complicated here. For beginner cooks, the recipe provides a detailed description of each step with photographs. Take any dried fruits you like. Large ones like prunes, figs, and dried apricots need to be chopped. Yeast is suitable both fresh and dry, of which you will need 7-8 grams. Select the cake baking time and temperature individually according to your oven. For some, 180 degrees is not enough, but for others, everything will burn at this temperature. The pie is very tasty, fluffy, aromatic. And dried fruits do not produce juice, so it does not flow out of the pie. Purpose: For an afternoon snack Main ingredient: Fruits / Dried fruits / Dough / Yeast dough Dish: Baking / Pies

Don't forget to line the baking sheet

It is very important to line the baking dish with a thick layer of baking paper. After a few hours in the oven, the baking sheet becomes very hot and the pie crust may burn. A layer of paper, or even two layers, according to my mother, will help protect the cake.

Using the bottom of the pan as a template, cut out a circle of baking paper to fit the diameter of the pan. Then cut out a long strip, the width of which is calculated as follows: measure the height of the side of the mold and add another 9 cm. Calculate the length of the strip this way: for a mold with a diameter of 20 cm - 66 cm, for a diameter of 24 cm - 73. Lay the resulting strip along the inner side of the mold.

Dried fruit and yogurt smoothie

You will need : 250 g of drinking yoghurt, 1 banana, raisins and dried apricots - several pieces each.

Cooking . Rinse dried apricots and raisins under running water and add hot water for 5-10 minutes to soften them. Drain the water and dry the dried fruits.

Pour yogurt into a deep container (or blender bowl), add banana cut into small pieces and prepared dried fruits. Whisk until smooth, pour into glasses and serve immediately.

Do I need to soak dried fruits?

A tip that is impossible for mere mortals to implement: leave dried fruit overnight in a bowl of brandy and fruit juice. To be honest, I don't bother with this step, simply because the dried fruit is much juicier and softer now than it once was. If you still want to do this, place the dried fruit in a large bowl, cover with brandy, orange and lemon juice and leave overnight. Don't forget to stir from time to time to help the fruit soak in better.

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Excellent recipe for pilaf with dried fruits and chicken

Cooking pilaf frightens many housewives, especially novice cooks, because of its complexity. But our simple recipe for delicious pilaf can pleasantly surprise you. To make the process easier, rice, dried fruits and vegetables will be cooked separately, except for dried barberries. You will get 8 servings in total, and the dish will take about 2 and a half hours to prepare.

What you will need:

Long grain rice, basmati is best - 600 grams
Water - 2 liters (plus 2 teaspoons of salt)
Whole chicken (cut into portions) for frying
Onion - 1 large piece
Ghee - about 250 grams
Dried fruits - 500 grams. The set should include: raisins, dried apricots, prunes and figs, which should first be soaked for 15-20 minutes in water, drained, rinsed again and dried
Zira and dried barberry - 1 tablespoon each
Eggs - 2 pieces
Ready seasoning for pilaf
Kazan or thick-walled saucepan, frying pan for chicken

What to do:

First of all, rinse the rice several times and let it dry. Add salt to boiling water, stir and pour rice into it - cook it over low heat for no more than 10 minutes - until it becomes slightly soft. Drain the water through a colander and leave the rice in it for a while.
We fill the cauldron. Grease the sides and bottom of the cauldron with a good amount of melted butter. Beat 2 eggs and pour them into a cauldron. Now the rice itself - it needs to be laid out in layers, sprinkling each with cumin and barberry, flavoring the top with butter (the same melted butter). Cook the rice with the lid tightly covered and over low heat for about 20-25 minutes. Then remove from the heat and wrap in a warm cloth.
Dried fruits. Boil one and a half glasses of water. Place a frying pan on the fire, add ghee to it - 3 tablespoons will be enough, heat it up. Place dried fruits in a frying pan and fry them over medium heat for 5 minutes, then pour in hot water. Without reducing the heat, simmer until soft. During stewing, juice will be released from the dried fruits - do not rush to wash the frying pan, we will need it.
Hen. To prepare it, finely chop the onion, place portioned chicken pieces on the fruit-butter sauce left over from the dried fruits, mix with the onion and cook for 30-40 minutes until fully cooked.
To serve, place all the ingredients of the dish - rice, chicken, dried fruits - together on one large plate or in portions for each person.

How to properly soak a pie

If you bake the cake early enough, at least a month before you plan to serve it, you can soak it in alcohol. Most people use brandy, but I know some who prefer rum. It is necessary to pierce the cake with a skewer in several places and pour brandy into the resulting holes. I've never been able to find skewers wide enough, so I usually use Japanese chopsticks.

The point of soaking is to keep the cake moist - this way it will be better preserved. I suspect it's not really necessary, but it works, so I'm happy to keep the tradition alive.

Once the cake has cooled completely, remove the paper from the pan and pierce the cake in several places throughout its surface using a skewer or knitting needle. Pour brandy over the pie until it is soaked but not soggy. I recommend 3-4 tbsp. spoons at a time. You shouldn’t take your best cognac, but remember that in the end you will get exactly what you poured inside, no better and no worse.

Wrap the cake in parchment and foil and store in the pan. After a few days, soak the cake with the same amount of brandy as the first time. Repeat impregnation several times.

Stewed chicken with dried fruits

You will need : 1 kg of chicken drumsticks or thighs, 100 g of raisins, prunes and dried apricots, 50 g of walnuts or almonds, 3 medium-sized onions, 30 g of vegetable oil, turmeric, black or red pepper - optional, salt - to taste , water.

Cooking . Cut the onion into pieces. Heat vegetable oil in a saucepan and place onion in it. Fry it over medium heat for 10 minutes.

When the onion releases its juice, salt it, and then add seasonings and chopped nuts into small pieces. Cook, stirring, for a few more minutes and then add the chicken to the pan. Fry it on both sides for a few minutes.

Wash dried fruits and dry lightly. For chicken, it is better to use sour, rather than sweet, dried apricots and raisins. Take prunes with pits: they will give the dish a special aroma. Add dried fruits to the cauldron, mix everything and lightly fry.

Then pour in water (it should lightly cover the food), cover the saucepan with a lid and simmer over low heat for about half an hour. Serve the dish hot.

If the pie didn't turn out well

I'm not sure that a homemade pie can turn out unsuccessful at all - I would say it's more charismatic or extravagant. But still, if we put aside sentimentality, there are certain situations that each of us would like to avoid.

Failed pie: If the center of the pie falls in, it's not the end of the world, but in today's world of perfectionism and widespread criticism, you may well view it as failure. A hollow in the center of the pie is most often a consequence of the dough being too wet (it should slide off the spoon easily, without additional shaking), or the pie not spending enough time in the oven. This can happen if you leave a freshly baked cake in a draft or unsuccessfully slam the oven door after checking its condition again.

Burnt cake: Most often this is due to the fact that you forgot to line the baking dish with a double layer of paper and the surface of the cake was in contact with the hot metal for too long. The reason may also be that the temperature in the oven is too high. I would recommend baking at 160°C.

Moist Cake: We want a moist cake. I?m not afraid to use this word. Really wet. But there is a significant difference between humidity and dampness. A soggy cake will be more pudding-like - this can happen if the cake was removed from the oven too early or the batter was too runny to begin with. The kneaded dough should retain its shape. This mistake can be corrected by adding a little more flour to the dough before baking, but this will be your last chance.

Dry Cake: The ratio of wet to dry ingredients in a cake is less than ideal. A dry, crumbly texture may be due to too little egg or liquid in the dough, or too much flour. But most often the main reason is leaving the pie in the oven for too long - that same obsessive desire to hold the pie longer, just “to be sure.” This usually happens in the same kitchens where too thick jam or jam is cooked.

Heart-healthy dried fruit recipe

Bran bread with dried fruits

Bran and dried fruits are a real recipe for the heart. The benefits of dried fruits were mentioned earlier; as for bran, thanks to the B vitamins they contain, our body more successfully fights high cholesterol and the occurrence of atherosclerotic plaques, which has a beneficial effect on the functioning of the heart.

What you will need:

Bran baking mix - 195 grams
Flour - 35 grams
Dried fruits at your personal discretion - 180 grams (cut into large pieces)
Walnuts, chopped - 25 grams
Pineapple juice - 80 milliliters
Egg white - 2 pieces

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Grease or spray a 23-by-13-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine bran baking mixture, flour, chopped dried fruit and nuts. Make a well in the center of the dough and pour in the pineapple juice and lightly beaten egg whites. Mix thoroughly again.
Transfer the dough to the pan and bake for 35 minutes. Check with a match - if it remains clean and dry after piercing the bread, the bread with dried fruits is ready. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 15 minutes.