BRANDIED FRUIT

Method:
Use opaque glass jar (not metal). The magic beginning is pineapple - makes the brandying start.

Use equal parts of pineapple and sugar, that is 1 cup of each. Stir, cover but not too tight. Wait two weeks. Then add another cup of fruit (e.g. strawberries) and sugar. Wait two more weeks. Then add equal fruit (e.g. mango) and sugar in another two weeks. Six weeks from the start you are ready to taste.

The brew sits at room temperature for years if you want it to as long as you add more fruit and sugar at intervals of not more than two weeks to keep the process working. There is no need to be exact. Just don't add more than half the existing volume of fruit and always make it equal parts of sugar and fruit.

A handful of grapes, a few Barbados cherries, whatever strikes your fancy. Bananas are a bit over-powering, but almost anything goes. Delicious over ice cream, in cakes, cottage and cheese bake.

I have used lychee, rambutan, jaboticaba, Barbados cherry, apple, mango, pawpaw, strawberries and pineapple - the flavour is delicious.

Joan and Bruce Crees, Mossman, Nth. Qld.

DATE: September 1985

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