Roy Creates Christmas Sugarplums

This week, Roy is all for getting into the Festive spirit and decided to pull out one of his favourite stories The Night Before Christmas. He also decided to listen to some of his favourite classical music, with a Christmassy theme and chose Tchaikovsky's Dance Of The Sugarplum Fairies. He noticed that both of these feature sugarplums, but he didn't have a clue what they were and when I asked the children whether they knew, they didn't have any answers either. Their best guess, just like Roy's, was that sugarplums were plums rolled in sugar. So, Roy decided to find out what sugarplums are, and how to make them!

Sugarplums are not, as you might have guessed by now, plums or even prunes rolled in sugar. They are a sweetmeat or comfit which has been around since the Middle Ages and started off as a way to cleanse the palate between courses. Originally, they were candied spice seeds, like carraway and cinnamon, but they changed to become a mixture of spices, dried fruits and nuts, rolled in sugar or coconut. They became firmly associated with Christmas during Victorian times, but have since fallen out of favour. This is a shame though, because they are actually a reasonably healthy Christmas treat!

You Will Need:

• 2 kilograms of mixed dried fruit. Roy used a mix of apricots, dates, figs, mixed fruit, prunes and raisins, which is very traditional, but you could use different fruits.
• 250 grams crystalised ginger
• 1 kilogram unsalted nuts. Roy bought a premade mix of nuts, but again, use whatever you like best!
• Finely grated rind of 2 large oranges
• 3 tablespoons of liquid - you can use the juice of the oranges, or, if you are an adult, you might like to try something more in the Christmas spirit!
• Granulated sugar or dessicated coconut. Sugar is, obviously, the most traditional, but coconut is also very traditional, and less sweet for those who don't have a sweet tooth.
• Optional - mixed spice, cinnamon or nutmeg. We suggest about 4 teaspoons

Roy decided this would make more than we could eat, so he used a half of this recipe. They would make great gifts though, and you can even get coloured sugar to roll them in now, so make as many as you like. Roy made about 100 sugarplums using half the mixture.

Method:

• Roughly chop the bigger pieces of fruit.

• Put the fruit, ginger, and orange rind into a bowl and mix them together. Do not put the nuts in yet.
• Pour the liquid over the fruit and leave it to absorb for couple of hours or overnight.

NOTE: Roy used a food processor, but even though his is big and powerful, the mix made the processor work pretty hard, so we processed a quarter of our ingredients at a time. Decide how much you want to put in your food processor at once depending on its' size and power.

• Roughly chop the nuts. You can do this by hand, but Roy used a food processor, to speed things up. To speed things up even more you could buy prechopped nuts. Just make sure they are unsalted!
• Add the fruit, ginger and nuts to the food processor. If you like, add some mixed spice, cinnamon or nutmeg too. Then turn the processor on and pulverise everything - you want a thick paste consistency.

• Roll teaspoons of the mixture into balls. You will want to use slightly wet hands to do this or the mix will stick to you.

• Drop the balls into a bowl filled with the sugar and roll them to coat

• Store the sugarplums in an airtight container, in a cool spot or in the refrigerator.
• It is best to leave your sugarplums for 2 or 3 days before you eat them, to let the flavours develop