While reading this excellent book – How to feed a dictator – I came upon an interesting recipe for a dried fruit pudding. It immediately caught my attention, with the sentence that it tastes like cake, wine and nuts all at the same time. And dried fruit mixed with wine always promises a delicacy. As an added benefit almost all ingredients were listed and the process was also vaguely described.
Well, surprisingly my internet search didn’t turn up a similar recipe. There are a lot of variations of dried fruit in a pudding shape, but none contain wine. The closest thing (in terms of desert, fruit and alcohol) is British christmas pudding like here and here. But judging on the ingredients and the method of preparation, the pudding described in the book is probably of a more soft consistency, similar to this one. So with no real recipe to be found, I was destined to do some cooking experimentation – yay!
First try
The recipe first mentions apricots, pears, apples, and other fruits which are baked in an oven at low temperature. Probably for a long time, to allow the sugars to caramelize and get that full, smooth flavor. Dried fruits could also be used in my opinion, but that is for another experiment. When the fruits are baked, cinnamon, cream, vanilla wine and pomegranate seeds are added. The recipe does not mention further preparation, but I guess some more cooking should be done to evaporate the alcohol and allow the tastes to fuse.
I used the fruits that I had at hand: an apple, a pear, a banana, an orange and some seedless grapes. I baked them for 2 hours at 160 °C and it smelled and tasted fabulous. The fruits were soft enough to be mashed with a fork and around 200 g of this mesh was mixed in a skillet with 50 mL of semi dry white wine, 50 mL of orange juice and 50 mL of cream. For seasoning, cinnamon and vanilla were used. I had no pomegranate seed at hand, so I skipped that, although it sounds like a nice idea. After 1-2 minutes the alcohol had evaporated and the mixture looked even and creamy. For the final touch I added a spoonful of ground almonds. I guess walnuts and hazelnuts or any mixture would also be equally good. Just a matter of taste.
First try results
The final puding was gorgeous. Rich, complex, smooth and full of flavor. It was also super sweet, so next time a stronger, drier wine can be used (probably a strong red wine would be a nice addition). Further, bananas should be sliced in really small pieces, since they tend to dry out and become more gummy and thus bigger pieces can break the smoothness of the pudding. The pudding did not lose any of its taste or texture and was still super tasteful after one week in the fridge. Interestingly, it tasted great either hot or cold and I really cannot decide which is better. However, the pudding can definitely be improved with a bit of whipped cream and crumble.
Next steps
First thing is using stronger, drier wine, probably a strong red wine to counteract the sweetness with higher acid content. Next, dried fruits can probably be used directly, without the need of extensive baking. The taste would be different, definitely not on the caramel side, but still an interesting idea. So, still some yummy work ahead!
