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Fruit Sweetening Paste (Pure Fruit Sweetener)

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Fruit Sweetening Paste – Pure Fruit Sweetener

I will be the first to admit that there’s a lot of healthified baked good recipes/treats on this site (and many more to come!). I’ve gotten some criticism because of it, but truthfully I like having healthier, wholesome options when I want that occasional treat.

 

And for the record, I do not eat paleo-fied cookies or cupcakes everyday. I’ve been eating paleo (real food, grain free, primal, whatever you want to call it) for a few years and in my opinion, allowing for these real food treats in your diet makes eating healthy much more sustainable.  And let’s face it, it makes it more enjoyable, too.

 

But peruse around this site and you’ll see that even my treat recipes are not loaded with a crazy amount of natural sweeteners like pure raw honey and maple syrup. I use as little sweetener as I possibly can get away with, while still maintaining a great flavor. 

 

Even natural sweeteners like pure raw honey and maple syrup only contain trace amounts of minerals and vitamins compared with nutrient dense fruit.

 

That’s why I love using real fruit to sweeten my baked goods as much as possible. Fruit contains an abundant source of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, antioxidants and fiber and is a wonderful source of energy for our cells.

 

And this fruit sweetening paste is pure fruit! You can use it in place of sweetening ingredients in recipes like honey and maple syrup. Plus, it’s super easy to make!

 

Fruit Sweetening Paste Recipe

 Makes one jarful

Ingredients:

Use one or a combination of the following:

dates, pits removed

dried apricots

figs

raisins

any other dried fruit

 

DIRECTIONS:

Fill a jar ΒΎ of the way full with your fruits (make sure to leave about 2 inches of room from the top). There’s no right or wrong combination of fruit.

Fill the jar with enough water to cover the fruit. Stick the jar in the refrigerator and refrigerate at least 8 hours. (I do this in the evening and let it hang out in the fridge overnight) After it’s been in the fridge for at least 8 hours, take it out and drain the liquid in a bowl or cup. Add the fruit only to your blender or food processor. Add a few tablespoons of the drained liquid – just enough to process the fruit. Blend or process a few minutes until very smooth. You may need to keep adding a bit of the reserved water at a time – add just enough to process it and enough to make it smooth.

Once it’s thoroughly blended and smooth, put it in a jar and store in the refrigerator. Enjoy!

It will keep for about 2 months (but you will probably use it up before then – it’s yummy stuff!).

You can use this as a substitute for honey and maple syrup in a lot of recipes. It’s not quite as sweet as honey and maple syrup, so you may need to use a bit more paste than the amount of honey and maple syrup in the recipes. You can even do half honey, half fruit paste (something I do a lot).  

These are some of my favorite recipes to use the fruit paste:

Breakfast Fruit Souffle

Apple Breakfast Cake

Baked Grapefruit Crisp

Pumpkin Spice Muffins 

 

Kids (and adults!) also enjoy dipping apple slices in it – it kind of tastes like a caramel apple πŸ™‚

 

 

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26 comments

  1. Avatar

    Can I put some bananas or other fresh fruits? Or only dry fruits is better?

    • Primally Inspired

      I considered bananas and other fresh fruits, but it would spoil much faster. Also the dried fruits have a much higher concentrate of natural sugars making them ideal for a sweetener replacement for honey/maple syrup.
      I often use ripe mashed bananas for a natural sweetener so I think adding fresh fruit could be done and probably would taste really good, too – I think you would just have to use it right away.

  2. Avatar

    can i use as a substitute for sugar as well or only for honey / maple syrup?- thanks

    • Primally Inspired

      Larissa, yes you can! I only mentioned honey and maple syrup because they are the only ones that I have experience with and it works exceptionally well as a substitute for them because it’s close to the same consistency as honey and has a similar flavor like maple syrup. But, you could use it as a sub for sugar. It’s definitely not as sweet as pure sugar, so keep that in mind when subbing it out.

  3. Avatar

    Nice recipe! Thanks for explaining the ins and outs of fruit paste.
    I might even gift this in jars for Christmas non Paloeans:)

  4. Avatar

    Do you have suggestions for eating Paleo while fasting for Lent? It’s a dilemma for me to abstain from meat for Lent yet continue eating Paleo.

    • Primally Inspired

      Hi Sophia! I know some people abstain from all meat, seafood and animal products for Lent and some just abstain from meat (and still eat eggs and other animal products). Could you let me know which you are following so I could make some recommendations? I just don’t want to suggest you to eat eggs and fish if you can’t have them πŸ™‚ Thanks!

  5. Avatar

    Well, hi! Found this while drinking your delish peppermint shake… it’s brilliant! I’m so excited to use this in place of honey and maple syrup for the times when bananas and applesauce aren’t right. I can imagine it must be a nice neutral taste but still present? Thanks for this post!

    Jen

    • Primally Inspired

      Thanks, Jen! And yes, you are right about the fruit sweetener. I’m horrible at describing tastes, but it brings an earthy, slightly sweet, caramel-y (is that even a word?! haha) taste similar to maple syrup. I found it goes best with pumpkin and apple and other fruit baked goods (I like it even better than maple syrup/honey in these types of baked goods), but the sky is the limit when it comes to substituting.

      That probably wasn’t helpful at all, but I tried. lol. Have a great one!

  6. Avatar

    Can’t wait to try this. I make all my smoothies adding two or three dates for sweetness… depending on the amount of dark chocolate I throw in. Frozen cherries and dark chocolate… two of my fav’s to combine.

  7. Avatar

    do you have any bread or muffins recipes that use this type of sweetener. I want to start eating more paleo and would love to use this as a replacement

  8. Avatar

    I’ve bought some dried fruit to try this recipe out later today and am very excited! I’ll be using dates, dried currants (because I love currants), and maybe some raisins if I need more to fill up the jar.

    I did have a few questions if you don’t mind. Have you ever used this as a replacement for sugar in a hot drink? And if so, did it dissolve nicely into the liquid?

    Have you ever tried using this in your homemade dark chocolate recipe? That’s also on my list to try out this week but wondering if I should stick to honey.

    Third question is more subjective of course based on the fruit you used, but have you ever put it into some nutritional calculator? I was wondering how it stacks up on it’s own and also in comparison to honey.

    Thank you for your time and your lovely recipes!

    • Primally Inspired

      Hi Valerie!

      I don’t think I’m going to be much help with your questions. I’ve never used it as a replacement for a hot drink, but I often put it in smoothies when I need a little extra sweetness. I’m not sure how it would dissolve, to be honest. I haven’t tried it using my chocolate recipe, but I think it could work. You could always try it and if it needed to be sweeter, add in a pinch of honey. I have also not put it in a nutritional calculator. I think there’s wonderful nutritional benefits of both fruit and raw honey. I do know that the beneficial enzymes of raw honey get destroyed if you heat honey, so that’s something to consider when deciding whether to use honey or a fruit paste like this.

      Sorry I couldn’t be of more help!

      • Avatar

        Does your site have a way to notify folks of responses to comments? Just curious!

        My fruit has been soaking overnight and I’m about to make it into paste today. I’ll try a little bit in a small cup of coffee tomorrow morning to see how it goes or maybe some nice herbal tea later today. I only use sweeteners in my one cup of coffee or when baking, but I’m trying to get out of the habit of using splenda. I love honey but it’s a bit too sweet for my tastes usually. So your fruit paste seems like an awesome thing to try out.

        I plan on making your homemade chocolate in the next couple days, then the cookies once I have those made, so I’ll let you know how it all turns out!

        Again, thank you for what you do. πŸ™‚

  9. Avatar

    This recipe looks delicious AND it fits the paleo autoimmune protocol. So, thank you! I just started a weekly Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable through my blog, and I would love it if you linked up this recipe. I’m trying to expand resources for the AIP community. Here’s the link: http://www.phoenixhelix.com/2013/11/13/paleo-aip-recipe-roundtable-3/

  10. Avatar

    I am eating a bit of my first batch on toast. It reminds me of apple butter (yum!). I can’t wait to try it in a recipe. I think I’m going to need a bigger jar.

  11. Avatar

    I’m excited to try this….it looks and sounds yummy! I have one quick question: if I use figs, would you recommend dried or fresh figs? Thanks!

  12. Avatar

    I have a jar of dried fruits soaking in the fridge right now after reading your recipe last night! I’m hoping this will be the answer to our search for an easy-on-the-blood-sugar sweetener the whole family can enjoy. We have tried stevia and erythritol and neither was a good fit for us. Thanks for sharing this recipe!

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