“Raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies are the main reason I have trust issues.”

Baking with dried fruit - revisited

Hello and welcome to Newsletter No 6 here on Substack! Thank you for stopping by. Grab a seat if you are interested in recipes as well as tips and tricks to make the most of our increasingly eclectic pantries - and make sure you hit that subscribe button if you don’t want to miss any future posts!

“Raisin cookies that look like chocolate chip cookies are the main reason I have trust issues.”

Well, not me personally, but allegedly my sister Helena who abhors any and all dried fruit. (A parental induced sugar ban when we were children may have motivated our grandmother to show her love for us by practically drowning us in trail mix instead of candy - me and my siblings must have consumed more than a life’s worth of dried fruit during our formative years). Unlike Helena, I actually quite like dried fruit and I also think dried fruit is woefully underrated as a baking ingredient.

But I get it. Dried fruit can be a bit boring and certainly doesn’t compare to fresh fruit - it has none of the visual appeal, crunch, juice or flavour of fresh fruit. But then comparison is the thief of joy as we all know.  And once we focus on what dried fruit can do, and not what it cannot, it’s easy to see why dried fruit is actually rather special and really the key to lots of tasty bakes and desserts. 

It goes without saying that most if not all dried fruit will bring sweetness to whatever you make with it. So much so that, in certain bakes at least, you can replace the sugar with dried fruit (case in point: for my son’s first birthday in August I replaced the sugar in my standard carrot cake recipe 1:1 with Medjool dates and it worked great). 

But dried fruit can do so much more. Shriveled shadows of their former selves, dried fruit is more than eager to absorb liquid (and any additional flavours from the liquid itself and any spices added to it). And once nice and plump from a bath in a liquid of your choosing (I like using black tea, orange juice, rhum or bourbon), dried fruit will lend moisture and fruity flavours to whatever you are baking but without the risk of soggy mushy cake batter or dough the way it can sometimes happen with fresh fruit. And don’t be tempted to skip the soaking (or poaching) stage - this also stops your dried fruit from stealing any moisture from your batter or dough and keeps the texture as the recipe intended. It also helps to prevent any burnt dried fruit on the surface of whatever you are baking. 

Those jammy little pockets of plumped up raisins, currants or chopped dried figs, prunes or apricots also provide an additional textural element to whatever you are making. Just think about the pleasure of biting into a hot cross bun and your teeth piercing one of the plumped up raisins in the crumb!

Dried fruit can also serve to amplify the flavour of other ingredients - for example, it is hard to imagine an Apple Strudel without a scattering of raisins in the filling! And the reason for this is very simple as I learned from Niki Segnit: “the smell of cooked raisins is partly attributable to the ketone beta-damascenone, which smells of cooked apples.” At the same time, the sweetness of raisins also provides a nice contrast to and underlines the fresh flavour and slight tartness of apples. 

But enough of my musings on dried fruit and how wonderful they really are. If you are still on the fence about baking with dried fruit or creating desserts with dried fruit, below are some fresh ideas for what to make with dried fruits that will hopefully make you reconsider. 

The next time you find yourself with a “glut” of soft, gooey and deliciously sweet Medjool dates:

• Why not try this Middle Eastern twist on Millionaire’s Shortbread with a crumbly, buttery cardamom shortbread base, a Medjool date and Tahini “caramel” filling and a Tahini ganache topping. To finish, lots of sesame seeds for some extra crunch?  The cardamom shortbread layer is wonderfully fragrant, the medjool date and tahini ‘caramel’ layer is just as tooth-achingly sweet and gooey as the caramel layer in traditional Millionaire’s Shortbread and the Tahini adds richness while also cutting through some of the sweetness of the medjool dates. And the toasted sesame seeds? Not only do they make these bars look pretty, they also provide a bit of bite.

• And the next time you are making Banana Split or any sort of ice cream sundae, why not try Izy’s Date Chocolate Fudge Sauce?

And those dried apricots that have been languishing in your pantry for far too long? 

• Turn them into Bon Appetit’s Apricot Miso Jam and thank me later. A quick jam of sorts but one using dried fruit - something I had not come across previously. And the end result is stunning - it’s fruity and much brighter in flavour than you might expect from a quick jam made using dried fruit. And yes, there is a savoury and funky edge to it thanks to the Miso but not so much that this Apricot Miso Jam veers into Chutney territory (although it would certainly not be amiss on a cheeseboard!). I made this Apricot Miso Jam several times already and it’s as good on toast, spooned onto porridge or Greek yoghurt as sandwiched between cake layers. 

• Another interesting technique that I came across a while ago is blending dried fruit with flour and using that flour in your recipe. (Truth be told, I first came across this idea in a recipe for grilled tuna where you blended flour with black olives and used that to coat the fish before frying). What this does is it ensures the flavour of the dried fruit is evenly dispersed in whatever you are baking - like in these Apricot, Pistachio and Saffron White Chocolate Chip Cookies. The technique works with other dried fruit as well of course.  

As for Prunes? 

• Next week, I will share my recipe for this Sticky Toffee Pudding with Prunes and Chinese Five Spice Powder and a Miso Butterscotch Sauce as pictured above. So if you are not already subscribed, hit the subscribe button to make sure you won’t miss this recipe! 

• In the meantime, do yourself a favour and make a batch of Claire Ptak’s Prune, Oat and Spelt Scones (see image below). 

And coming back to the good old raisin, there is much more that you can make with them than oatmeal cookies (although the recipe in Melissa Weller’s book is as close to perfection as you can get if you ask me). You could for example turn the oatmeal cookie idea into a layer cake with a Marsala-spiced raisin compote filling, cream cheese frosting and coating of crunchy caramelised oats. Or you could pickle some raisins in Champagne or red wine vinegar to serve alongside cheesecake (this recipe for pickled fresh blueberries sounds like it could be a great starting place for pickled raisins). 

What are your favourite recipes using dried fruit? And have you come across any unusual and delicious recipes using dried fruit? Share in the comments below!