Divine Fruit Dip

You know, I have always called this recipe fruit dip but I am thinking for that it should be called Divine Fruit Sauce. Hmmmmmm.

I will stick with tradition.

It is Monday.

I am tired.

I have another party to go to tonight. That’s me, party animal.

So we need a recipe. And this is an awesome one. The first time I ever had it I was having lunch with some friends. We had all provided some aspect of the lunch. Sarah had brought some fruit and a sauce. I am not really a big one for sauce on my fruit. I won’t tell you about the Hot Fruit Compote that Grandma Amsler used to make. She was somehow under the delusion that we liked hot stewed prunes and pineapple. I was scared for life. So I wasn’t really excited about putting anything on my fruit. But Sarah insisted.

I drizzled. I ate.

The angels sang. This stuff is that good.

Remember, the link for the recipe is at the bottom in big bold letters.

There aren’t that many ingredients which is always a good thing this time of year.

Now I have to say that if you have a double boiler hanging around your kitchen you might want to get it out now. I do not have one of those.

And no Mimi I don’t need one.

If you don’t have a double boiler than a metal bowl over a small sauce pan of simmering water will do just as well.

Please, please, please ignore the absolute messiness of my cook top. The day that I actually made this was Saturday and I was getting ready for the company Christmas party which was being held at Chez Knit. The cook top was clean by the time that everyone arrived but not when I was taking pictures.

Now back to the recipe.

Bring the water up to a simmer.

Put the sugar in the bowl.

Add the lemon juice. I will say that the original recipe had DOUBLE the amount of lemon juice that I used. Not. Good. Way too much pucker power if you know what I mean.

Add the pineapple juice.

Add the orange juice.

Let’s spend some time talking about orange juice for a moment. I am going to ask you to please use fresh squeezed juice for this. It will not taste the same if you do not. And lest you say, “I bet it will.” and you know who you are. I will tell you that I have made it with something other than OJ squeezed that day and it was not the same. And I even threw it out.

And we know that I do not like to throw out food.

Thank goodness my local grocery store has OJ that they squeeze every morning. I didn’t have the time to do it myself.

Just take your whisk and stir the juice mixture so that the sugar dissolves and the juice temperature is hot.

Now comes the “tricky” part. Don’t be scared. You will do just fine. Have you ever “tempered” eggs. No? Well you will.

Raw eggs added to a hot liquid do not a good mix make. The eggs tend to scream a bit and then curdle in protest. It is a tough thing to watch. You must bring the temperature of the eggs up gently to the temperature of the hot liquid. You do this by adding some of the hot liquid slowly to the eggs, all the while whisking the eggs around so that they don’t curdle. Then, after you have added some of the hot liquid slowly to the egg yolks and whisked them all around and sent them to couples therapy you then add the tempered egg yolks to the hot liquid whisking all the time.

Add the cornstarch to the egg yolks and whisk them together.

Then temper the eggs. I didn’t take a picture of this step because there was only one of me and I needed both hands. Can you see the nice coating on the bowl. That means that I have successfully tempered the eggs.

Whew!

Then slowly add the tempered eggs to the hot juice, whisking all the time. Do not stop whisking until everything is all melded together and happy.

Then add the lemon and orange zest and continue to stir the juice mixture for about 10 minutes until it starts to thicken a bit. It will not be too thick but just a bit.

Oh you cannot believe how good this smells. I want it now.

Now take a piece of plastic wrap and law it down over the mixture with the plastic touching the surface. You need to cool it down but you don’t want a skin to form.

And because I live in the Frozen Northeast Ohio where we have had about 40 inches of snowfall so far and it isn’t even winter, what better place to cool down my mixture.

Perfect.

And then……..

Disaster struck.

An hour or so passed. I had been deep in other party preparations. It was time to finish the dip. I opened up the sliding door and went to pick up the bowl.

That’s odd? The plastic isn’t on the bowl. It isn’t windy out here. Where is the plast…….

Oh here is the plastic. Hey! Why does it have a bunch of holes ripped in it and…..

And then I looked up. And there stood Max the Very Bad Dog.

Yes, I had put Max out and hadn’t thought about the dip for one second. And he had come to the sliding door to bark that he wanted to come in. And there at the back door he found a generous surprise from me.

I am so sorry Alpha Male. I could not help myself and my dogish tendencies. It was there. I had to. I just had to.

And then I had a dilemma. I didn’t have time to remake the sauce. I had 16 people arriving in about 3 hours…..

So I just reheated the sauce and let it cook for a while.

It was FINE! Fine I tell you. I had some this afternoon and I survived.

Now back to the recipe.

When the mixture is cooled like it is supposed to….

Then you add one cup of plain yogurt. Mix it well and chill til time to use.

Yum.

  Oh be still my beating heart. This stuff is so good.

 

Divine Fruit Dip