Just recently, I’ve been noticing a fruit in the produce section that intrigued me. It looks a lot like a light colored (not dark purple), plum with freckles and the name is similar. The tag on the display tells me it is a pluot, but what is that? Pluots are members of the stone fruit family, just as peaches and apricots are. They were developed as a hybrid fruit in the late 1980s and are actually 75% plum and 25% apricot. They have a smooth skin and a shape and texture that is like a plum. The flavor is intense and delicious and they don’t have a bitter aftertaste that plums sometimes have. They are totally and deliciously sweet.
There are several varieties of pluots, including Dapple Dandy, Dinosaur Egg, Flavor Grenade and also Flavorglo. When you are purchasing pluots, look for a fruit that is firm to the touch with just a little give, smells fragrant, and has no blemishes. They are available in a variety of colors, and you should choose the most intense colored fruit of any variety, as they will be the tastiest. If the fruit feels hard to your touch, don’t select it as it won’t ripen well.
Ripe pluots can be stored on the counter for as long as three days, or in the fridge for about a week.
I know the following desserts have absolutely nothing to do with pluots, but since I don’t have any pluot recipes in my files, I decided to give you something else instead and just hope you will enjoy all of them.
This recipe was in my files and since someone just recently asked me about diabetic recipes and said she was craving sweets, hopefully it will help her a little bit.
Diabetics Delight
(Read all instructions before starting).
1 box yellow cake mix (now that sugar-free cake mixes are available, you might consider trying one in this recipe)
12 oz. diet soda (Sprite Zero® or your choice)
1 can crushed pineapple (16-oz size) (divided use)
1 large tub Cool Whip®, sugar free
1 large box of sugar-free vanilla instant pudding
Empty cake mix into large bowl, add diet soda and mix well. Then add ½ can of crushed pineapple and stir well. Pour into 9×12 pan that you have lightly sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake as directed on package. While the cake is baking, mix the Cool Whip®, the remaining crushed pineapple and the pudding together and stir well. Chill thoroughly. When the cake has finished baking and has cooled, spread the Cool Whip® mixture over the top. Cut into squares to serve. Makes 12 to 15 servings.
Recently, for a get-together here in Yoakum, I served my version of a cake that was served at our bunco in Devine a sometime ago. It was a beautiful and colorful cake of three layers, each one with a different flavor of gelatin in the batter and was really delicious. The original recipe called for three boxes of white cake mix, but since I wanted a smaller cake, I used only two boxes, and rather than white cake mix, I used yellow because I felt the color would be more intense, and, since there are several diabetics in my group, I wanted to make it as sugar free as possible so they could enjoy it also.
The rest of the story is that this week, when we went to the venue where we have our meeting, the clerk asked me who had made the dessert a couple of weeks before, since I had shared with the staff. After admitting I had made the dessert, she told me it was absolutely wonderful, which of course made me feel pretty good! When I told her it was almost totally sugar free, she didn’t want to believe me at all and kept telling me “He is not going to believe this at all”, meaning the owner of the venue. So, here is the recipe for y’all to try.
Joyce’s Fruity Jell-o® Cake
(Read all instructions before beginning to make cakes)
2 boxes Pillsbury®, sugar free yellow cake mix (16-oz boxes)
Ingredients as required for making both cakes
1 small box, sugar free lime flavored gelatin
1 small box, sugar free lemon flavored gelatin
1 small box, sugar free orange flavored gelatin
food coloring (if desired)
flavoring (if desired)
1 carton (8-oz) sugar free whipped topping, thawed
1 small box, sugar free instant vanilla pudding
¾ cup shredded coconut
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
If you have three 9×13 pans, prepare them by greasing and flouring each one. If not, you will have to bake each layer separately. (Leave the unused dough in the bowls in the fridge as the previous one bakes).
Prepare cakes according to package directions, one at a time. Mix dough together in the mixer bowl and then divide into three equal portions, placing two in medium sized bowls and the last one back in your mixing bowl. Add a box of gelatin to each portion and stir well to mix it in. If you want a more intense yellow or green, add a little food coloring, also, if you have orange and lemon extract, it is fine to stir it in also. Pour one batch of batter into the prepared pan and bake according to directions on the box. Since it is a smaller portion of dough, it will bake in about 20 to 25 minutes, rather than the 30 to 35 listed on the box. Remove cake from pan and allow each layer to cool completely.
Filling/frosting:
Mix together the whipped topping and the vanilla pudding, and stir in the coconut.
Use a cookie sheet (covered with foil if desired), and place one cooled layer on it, top with 1/3 of the frosting mix, add another cake layer, top with 1/3 of the frosting, add the third layer and top with the remaining frosting. It does not matter in which order you layer the cakes. Trim off the edges so you can see the beautiful layers and it is ready to serve. Store in the fridge. It will keep for several days in the fridge and the addition of the pudding to the whipped topping seems to stabilize it and keep it from disappearing.