[Sca-cooks] Re: shish kabab response #1

[Sue Clemenger]

It's just an idea, although a good friend says she found something 
similar in Fettiplace, so I think I'll have to dig up my photocopy and 
check.
No egg whites involved at all (actually, I've never heard of doing it 
that way...is it like "frosting" fruit or flower blossoms??).  I've made 
very tasty sugar plums following a recipe that I found in the 
flori-thingy (forgive me, but I'm forgetting the author's name on this 
sunny, hot Sunday afternoon).  It involves a 9-day (plus) process in 
which you first layer cut halves of the fruit (with skins, but minus the 
stones) with thin layers of sugar in a pot, bring it slooooowly to a 
boil, turn it off, and let it soak for three days.  You then (twice 
more) bring it to a brief simmer, and let it soak an additional 3 days 
(9 days total), after which you remove the fruit from the syrup, rinse 
it off (I think), roll them in a bit of extra sugar, and dry them on 
racks (I used racks set on top of cookie sheets in my gas oven...pilot 
light kept them just warm enough to dry them admirably, without 
"cooking" them).  They end up intensely sweet, and very nicely flavored, 
and they last a long time, if you don't eat them all, first.  The high 
concentration of sugar prevents them from drying out into prunes.  And 
I've found it works better with smaller plums, rather than larger.
I dunno if the same process will actually work with apricots, but since 
I had the sugar, and access to the fruit (which would go to waste, 
otherwise), I thought it might be a fun experiment.  I'll try to 
remember to post something about it when I'm done! ;o)
--maire

otsisto wrote:

> Growing up in St. Louis we had an apricot tree that fruited in late July
> early August.
> Please forgive the confusion but how do you plan to make "sugarplums" out of
> apricots? They have a fuzz on the outside unlike plums which have a smooth
> skin and peeling the apricots will make everything sticky and you will have
> to use a whole lot of sugar.
> Or do you have another method of sugarplums other than egg whites and sugar?
> 
> Lyse
>