Soaking Dry Fruits

November-December is the best time of the year… Weather is much better even in a warm m place like Chennai, which is a boon for Bakers. Plus lots of fruits are available and Christmas is round the corner where every food group is full of interesting and tasty baked goodies. There are many Bakers adding various posts on how to soak the dry fruits in alcohol or non alcoholic liquid in their blog. So, here are my two cents on soaking and baking the most delicious fruit cake.
While I was choosing various dry fruits and chopping them into uniform sized pieces, I thought of experimenting with the liquid used for soaking. After reading various blog and seeing lot of videos on you tube, I decided to use fresh home made black grape juice and secondly use tea infused with cinnamon, cloves, star anise and mace. Wow what an aroma while it was getting boiled. Outstanding !

So here goes my recipe. I have not measured the dry fruits accurately. It’s more of an approximation. I can assure you it doesn’t matter in the final product. Also you can use whatever dry fruit is available with you. No hard and fast rule as I always stress upon. So just get ready and enjoy what you are doing 🙂 All the fruits that I have used are either dry fruits or dehydrated ones.

Ingredients:

Dry fruits:

• Cranberries 5-6 tbsp
• Black raisins 5-6 tbsp
• Golden raisins 3-4 tbsp
• Black currant 3-4 tbsp
• Glazed cherries 2-3 tbsp
• Dehydrated apples 8-10 pieces
• Dehydrated strawberries 8-10
• Tootifrooti frooti 2 tbsp (optional)
• Dates 16

For the liquid:

Tea Decoction:

• Water 1 cup plus 2 tbsp
• Tea granules 2 tsp
• Cinnamon 2 inch piece
• Cloves 3-4
• Star anise 1-2
• Mace 1-2

Grape Juice:

• Fresh black grapes ~ 250 gm

Method:

• Cut the dry fruits into uniform sized small small pieces.
• Remove the seeds and chop the dates too.

• Clean and wash the grapes and blend it in a juicer or mixer and strain the juice. Do not add water or sugar.

• Boil 1 cup of water in a sauce pan and add the spices. Bring it to a boil.abd add the tea granules to it.
• When it boils well and all the flavours are infused into the tea, remove from heat and allow it to cool down.

• Divide all the dry fruits into half and put the two halves in two clean and sterilized glass bottles or jars.
• Pour the grape juice into one bottle and pour the strained spice tea into the other bottle. The dry fruits should be fully soaked with the liquid.

• Give it a nice stir and close both the bottles with an airtight lid.
• Store the bottles in a cool dark place for 24 hours.
• It is ready to be used after 24 hours.
• Or you can store the bottles in a refrigerator for 2-3 weeks.
• The dry fruits will soak most of the liquid and become all puffed up.
• Drain the liquid and use it in your fruits cake.