Dried apple compote
The tastiest, most wholesome, richly flavored drink — and one for the whole family! Dried apple compote is a drink everyone knows from childhood. It has a naturally fruity taste and an amber color, and it's full of vitamins and minerals, especially if you make it from apples you've dried yourself.
Cooking method
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Step 1:
How do you make dried apple compote? Gather your ingredients. Filtered or bottled water makes for a much tastier drink. Adjust the sugar to your taste — you can leave it out entirely, which is what's recommended for young children. I always add a slice of lemon toward the end of cooking; it makes the compote's flavor more vivid.
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Step 2:
Sort through the apples, discarding any spoiled ones, then rinse them well under running water in a colander.
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Step 3:
Cover the apples with cold water and let them soak for half an hour to plump up, then drain them in a colander again.
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Step 4:
Pour cold water into a pot, add the apples, and set it over medium heat.
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Step 5:
Wait for the water to boil, then add the sugar. Turn the heat down, cover the pot, and cook the compote for twenty minutes.
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Step 6:
Right at the end you can add spices — a cinnamon stick, cardamom, vanilla — it's all a matter of taste. I add a strip of lemon or orange peel, which gives the compote a pronounced citrus note we love. Just be sure to pull the lemon out once it cools, or the compote may turn bitter. Let the finished compote steep for an hour and it'll taste even better. Serve it at the end of lunch or dinner, or with fresh pastries for an afternoon snack. Enjoy!
- The recipe couldn't be simpler, and you can vary the flavor by adding other dried fruit: prunes, raisins, dried apricots, dried pears, or dried peaches. They'll need to be rinsed well and soaked before cooking too. Depending on what you add, the cooking time may run longer — prunes and dried apricots, for instance, take longer, while raisins can cook for twenty minutes just like apples. If you use honey instead of sugar, stir it into the almost-cooled drink, otherwise the heat destroys its beneficial compounds. Always let the compote steep so the fruit fully releases its flavor. And don't make enormous pots of it — fresh compote tastes better than yesterday's.
- In place of sugar, you can use a heat-stable sugar substitute.
- Use filtered or bottled water with a neutral taste. Tap water can lend the drink an off, distinctly mineral flavor.
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Lemon - 16 kcal/100g
- Lemon zest - 47 kcal/100g
- Granulated sugar - 398 kcal/100g
- Sugar - 398 kcal/100g
- Water - 0 kcal/100g
- Dried apples - 231 kcal/100g
