Christmas Fruit Compotes and Apple Chips

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 December 2021

The scents of Christmas include not only vanilla sweets, pinecones and purpura, but also tropical exotic fruit, which is suddenly everywhere in abundance. Tangerines, oranges, pineapples, persimmons, papayas and more. We traditionally make a fruit salad on Christmas Eve, with various fresh and compote fruit. When I saw beautiful yellow ripe pineapples in the store, I thought of making my own compotes with unusual flavours. They are very suitable for winter evenings, in fruit salads, on oatmeals and even as gifts. Bringing on a visit a jar of wonderfully fragrant compote fruit will please everyone for sure. For me, edible gifts are some of my favourites, moreover with the added value of being homemade!



Here are my combinations, but the possibilities are endless. I made pineapple compote with lime, lemon and ginger, pineapple compote with vanilla, cinnamon and cloves and pomegranate compote with orange.

First step: Sterilisation of glass jars

Rather not underestimate this step, as it ensures a long preservation of the compotes . There are many ways to sterilise jars. I do it by pouring boiling water over the jars and lids, then placing the empty jars on a baking tray filled with about 3 cm of water and putting them in an electric oven heated to 100°C for 10 min.

Second step: Filling of jars

Pineapple compote with lime, lemon and ginger

Ingredients:

  • ½ large pineapple
  • 0,5 l water
  • 150 g sugar
  • juice of ½ lime
  • juice of ½ lemon + lemon peel
  • piece of fresh ginger

Instructions:

Cut the pineapple into cubes and put them in jars with a piece of ginger and a piece of lemon peel. Boil water with sugar in a pot, add the squeezed juice of lime and lemon. Then pour the hot liquid over the fruit in jars. The liquid should reach a few millimetres above the fruit. Put the lid on the jar.

Pineapple compote with vanilla, cinnamon and cloves

Ingredients:

  • ½ large pineapple
  • 0,5 l water
  • 110 g sugar
  • 2 sachets of vanilla sugar (40 g total)
  • cinnamon stick
  • whole cloves

Instructions:

Cut the pineapple into cubes and put them in jars with a stick of cinnamon and few whole cloves. Boil water with both normal and vanilla sugars in a pot. Then pour the hot liquid over the fruit in jars. The liquid should reach a few millimetres above the fruit. Put the lid on the jar.

Pomegranate compote with orange

Ingredients:

  • 2 pomegranates
  • 0,4 l water
  • 150 g sugar
  • juice of 1 orange

Instructions:

Scoop out the pomegranate seeds, remove the white leftover skins and fill jars with them. Boil water with sugar in a pot, add the squeezed juice of orange. Then pour the hot liquid over the fruit in jars. The liquid should reach a few millimetres above the fruit. Put the lid on the jar.


Tip: If I have room left in the jar, I top it up with sliced apples, which I always have in the fridge. It looks spectacular!




Third step: Canning

The last step is the canning process. I make it in an electric oven. Put the compote jars on a deep baking tray covered with 3-5 cm of water (they can´t touch each other) and put them in an electric oven heated to 170° for about 35 min. After removing them from the oven, turn the compotes upside down until they cool down.

Dried apple chips

Another tip for a healthy winter snack is homemade dried apples. I processed apples this way in autumn when I had huge amount of them. As dried, they last the whole winter, but you will probably eat them earlier. I don´t have a fruit dryer so I used the following method and it worked perfectly. I put slices of fresh apples in a bowl filled with water, where I added a teaspoon of citric acid (can be also lemon juice), then removed them and soaked up excess water with paper kitchen towl. Then I threaded apple slices onto skewers. I dried them on a newspaper placed on the heating radiator, but you can also do it in the oven. It´s also very good to dash some apple slices before drying with cinnamon. I recommend trying this recipe, very simple and tasty!



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