I use mostly dried fruit for my cake, but wanted something green- and not the dyed cherries. A friend used some Kiwi- dried, but I prefer not to buy a bag of that via mail and wanted to just use one Kiwi. Is it OK to just peel/slice and put it in the cake w/the other dried fruits? Should I 'dry' it in the oven first?
thanks, George in Tallahassee
I made a Norwegian Christmas bread and used dried fruit. One of the problems the bread has was that due to the fruit being dried, it wasn't nice and soft like candied fruit. I don't like to buy the containers of candied fruit because they taste like crap.
The dried fruit that I used didn't have cherries in them so I let some drain to use. They still had moisture in them so they were nice and soft. Next time I make it I will soak the dried fruit for at lest an hour, probably a lot longer, so it will be softer. The fruit became hard, like the heat soaked up all the liquid.
My suggestion is to soak it for a few hours to get them nice and moist before you mix them into the dough. It tasted good, just the fruit wasn't the nice chewy texture I wanted and had with the dried fruit we eat for a snack.
My concern was the opposite- used several dry fruits in my last cake and following the direction by coating them in flour and they soaked up the juices w/mixing. I also used some canned pineapple that tasted great, but I was going to try Kiwi- its available dried but I only want a little and its not in my town, so why not just use one fresh Kiwi cut up? Maybe dried some in the oven? Or maybe not? George
and it was a hit with all of my friends!
http://artistta.blogspot.ca/2011/12/real-food-christmas-basket-sourdough.html?m=1
In this recipe they soak the dried fruit in rum overnight and then cook it the next day.
I love that it uses all real fried fruit and none of the candied stuff. Don’t worry about getting the organic as indicated in the recipe. I didn’t and it still turned out amazing.