Scandinavian Fruit Soup

This chilled soup is an excellent counterpart to a cookie tray. It provides contrasting flavors and textures without refined sugars, while still being a sweet finish to the meal. It also makes an excellent bedtime snack after candlelight services and keeps for several days in the fridge. For my third recipe of #ChristmasWeek we're heading back to Scandinavia for Fruit Soup.

Growing up, Christmas Eve was the big meal of the holiday. My folks would round up strays (folks who didn't otherwise have plans for the evening) and serve a smorgasbord of fish, Swedish meatballs (link to my folks making a batch for the blog), boiled potatoes, more fish (did I mention the pickled herring?) and lefse--that recipe is coming on Friday to round out #ChristmasWeek. 

On Christmas Eve after piling on all of the fish smorgasbord delights, we'd push back from the table and go digest somewhere. Typically us kids would play Bobby Hull hockey in the basement while the adults visited upstairs. After a period of time, we'd reconvene at the table for dessert: cookies and fruit soup. And more lefse, because you can never have too much of a good thing like lefse.

Do you get a tangerine in the toe of your stocking? I grew up with tangerines in my stocking, reading about Almanzo Wilder getting an orange in his stocking in the Little House on the Prairie series, and now we've got the Band Fruit Fundraiser citrus piled up in the basement (link to my fruit round up featuring 156 recipes using fall and winter fruits). As much as I love dark chocolate peppermint bark-coated roast beast, fruit is also an integral part of my Christmas sweets spread.

If you like to eat locally, Scandinavian Fruit Soup is your excuse to pull out the packages of beets berries you put up while they were in season. [In my case, I came across way too many packages of roasted beets in my quest to find blueberries, so beet & orange smoothies are my current breakfast drink of choice necessity]. If you don't have local fruit put up, canned or frozen fruit works great.  I'm especially partial to canned cherries--terrific flavor--and I love how the grapes in fruit cocktail look in the dark juice.

My recipes for #ChristmasWeek have been a mixture of getting my ethnic on and classic sweets that I just love to eat any time of year, but make especially for the holidays. Monday I shared Finnish Pulla {Cardamom Coffee Braid}, yesterday I shared lessons learned from making Pecan Brownie Bites for a Cookie Drive, tomorrow I'll share Toffee Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Friday I'm bringing #ChristmasWeek home with Norwegian Lefse. For more of my traditional savory & farm share centric recipes, please see my Visual Recipe Index.

Swing by all the participants to see what they've been whipping up for the holidays:

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies by Cravings of a Lunatic

Peppermint Spritz Cookies by The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen

Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls by Dinners, Dishes, and Desserts

Scandinavian Fruit Soup by Farm Fresh Feasts

Egg Nog Pound Cake by My Catholic Kitchen

Coquito Cheesecake Flan by Mind Over Batter

Mulled Wine Fruit Gums by Food Lust People Love

Soft Vanilla Caramels by That Skinny Chick Can Bake

Scandinavian Fruit Soup (makes 8 small servings)

Instructions

• 3 cups dark fruit juice (I've used straight pomegranate juice, pomegranate-blueberry juice and assorted cranberry blends, always 100% juice because that's how I roll)
• 2 Tablespoons minute tapioca
• 1 cinnamon stick (or a broken part of a stick)
• ½ cup dried cherries or cranberries or raisins
• ½ cup frozen strawberries
• ½ cup frozen blueberries
• ½ frozen raspberries
• ½ cup other fruit (I've used canned pineapple, canned peaches, canned cherries, fruit cocktail)

Instructions

1. In a 3 quart saucepan combine juice, tapioca, and cinnamon stick (do not turn on the heat). 
2. Let sit for 15 minutes to hydrate the tapioca, then add the dried cherries and heat over medium high heat, stirring occasionally for 10 to 15 minutes until the tapioca is clear.  
3. Remove from heat, discard the cinnamon stick, and stir in the other fruits.  
4. Chill.  Serve cold. Keeps for several days in the fridge.