#rumtopf

Rumtopf is one of my favorite Christmas recipes, and we’re just finishing the season when you can make it.  (This year’s growing season seems to be going a little late, so at least in California, you can still get some reasonable summer fruits, but once we hit October, honestly, that’s it...)

Rumtopf (translated: “rum pot”) is a traditional German Christmas dish of fresh fruit preserved in sugar and alcohol.  It’s really easy to make and is always a crowd pleaser!

Start with your favorite summer fruits.  You want berries, stone fruits, or anything with that fine-grained, soft texture.  Apples, pears, and oranges don’t really work in it.  If you want to use grapes, you can either pierce the skin with a toothpick or just cut them in half.

Wash the fruit and cut it into bite-size pieces.  You don’t have to peel it, but I usually do peel the larger fruits, like peaches and plums.  (I recommend halving cherries to remove the stones.)  Put it in a bowl with anywhere from a quarter to a half its weight in sugar (if you don’t have a scale, just use a generous amount, and if it doesn’t quite work, add more later) and mix it together.

Leave it for a couple hours while you go about your business.  When you come in, the fruit should be sitting in a puddle of its own juice, which was drawn out of it with the sugar.

Finally, put it in a large jar with a hearty splash of rum, and maybe kirsch.  You can also add spices or other flavorings -- for example, I often add vanilla and almond extracts, since I think they go nicely with stone fruit.  If you add too little alcohol, it will start to produce bubbles and smell a little weird -- just add more rum and it will stop.

You can keep adding fruit throughout the season if you start early, but it certainly isn’t too late to throw one together now!  Between now and December, the flavors will mix and infuse, and by the time it’s ready, the fresh flavor of the preserved fruit is really welcome!

Classic fruits to add include peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots, cherries, strawberries, and raspberries, but it’s also very common to add pineapple or any other ~*exotic*~ fruits you can find.  I added some kiwis to mine!