Fancy Fruit Medley

Method:

FROM THE KITCHEN:
Recipe kindly provided by Jinu Abraham, Executive Chef, Heritage Hotel, Auckland.

The essence of Christmas, creamed fruit mince with crunchy sliced almonds.

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Roasted fruit – Roast apples, pears and bananas for 30 mins separately with a sprinkling of sugar if required. Put the fruit in the blender; add vanilla seeds and cinnamon powder. Blend on high speed, drizzle in the cacao butter to emulsify with the mix. Add water if the mix is too thick.
3. Christmas fruit mince – Mix sugar, raisins, currants, olivani, zest and juice of orange, and cinnamon powder. Marinate overnight.
4. Strawberry mix – Cut the strawberries in half, mix with any other berries, chopped mint, zest and juice of lime, and sugar. Let marinate for 15 minutes.
5. Roast the almonds with icing sugar in a medium-hot oven at 150C for 10 minutes or until crispy.
6. Spoon the roasted fruit in a dessert bowl. Top with christmas mince and layer with berries, finally sprinkle with sliced almonds.

Heritage Auckland offers vegan menu options from breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Ingredients:

• 2 apples, peeled & cored
• 2 pears, peeled & cored
• 2 bananas
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
• 30g cacao butter, melted
• 1/2 vanilla pod, scraped
• 45g dark brown or demerara sugar
• 80g raisins or sultanas
• 20g dried currants
• 1 Tbsp Olivani or Coconut oil
• 1 orange Zest & juice
• 1/4 tsp Cinnamon powder
• 1/2 punnet strawberries
• 1/2 punnet blueberries
• Few mint leaves
• 1 lime (zest & juice)
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1/2 C sliced almonds
• 1 Tbsp icing sugar