Are you looking for healthy treats for you and your kids? We are not the only generation to worry about the amount of sugar consumed by our young children. As I have been sorting through my great-grandmother's recipes, I discovered a newspaper clipping dated 1952, where the Red Cross suggests substituting “Fruit Candies” in the place of “rich confections” which might make children ill. The article continues with several recipes for making these delicious fruit candies at home, even perhaps enlisting the help of the children themselves!
The recipes that follow combine dried fruit, nuts, and citrus to make tasty little treats. If you have ever made homemade Larabars, the recipes are incredibly similar!
Resources for Homemade Historical Fruit Candies
Food Processor- Although the 1950s Mom may have “chopped everything finely” as the original recipe suggests, I use my food processor to speed things up.
Shredded Coconut– This was the best deal I found (and I kind of forgot to pick any up when I did our twice a month grocery run) on coconut, plus it's from one of my favorite brand's.
Dried fruit-Dehydrating fruit is easy and often times cheaper than purchasing it. Here's my tutorial on How to Dehydrate Fruit, plus an easy tip that's saved me hours of drying time. I will often times swap out blueberries and cherries for raisins or other dried fruits to give a different flavor or to avoid purchasing an ingredient.
Kitchen scale-This kitchen scale is less than $15 and I use it for making homemade lotion bars, creams, and food of course. Seriously, a must have in a from scratch homemade kitchen.
Historical Fruit Candy Recipe
On top of being a sweet snack, we have these at my house as part of a quick breakfast on the go, and they make excellent trail food for family hikes.
Apricot Candy
Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until finely chopped and mixture sticks together. Roll into balls or shape into squares.
Fruit Caramels
This recipe is measured in pounds. If you have a kitchen scale, it's easy to put the bowl of your food processor on it and then add ingredients to the right weight. If you don't have a kitchen scale, try about ½ cup of each weighed ingredient.
Put all ingredients into a food processor and process until finely chopped and the mixture sticks together. If you find the mixture is dry, squeeze in orange juice until it starts to stick together. Press into a loaf pan and cut into squares. Or form into squares or balls by hand.
A note about nuts: The original recipe simply states “nuts” and leaves the choices up to you. I usually use a combination of almonds and pecans, or almonds and cashews. You could use one type of nut, or many. I have even used sunflower seeds in place of nuts.
Variations
- Try adding spices such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, or ginger.
- Add a little vanilla instead of some of the lemon juice or orange juice.
- The original recipe suggested rolling the finished treats in sugar, but rolling in coconut would be nice too.
- Changing up the types of nuts, or even the dried fruits, will create completely new varieties
The original recipes (which have been slightly modified here) were published in “The Star Weekly” in February 1952.
Don't miss out on the rest of Andrea's Great-Grandmother's treats, visit Frugal Tips from 1913, Historical Honey Date Squares, and fan-favorite Vintage Carrot Cookies.
Dried Fruit Candy
Ingredients
- ¾ cup dried apricots
- ½ cup nuts almonds, pecans, walnuts, cashews, etc. see note below
- ¾ cup shredded coconut
- 1 tsp grated orange rind
- 1 tsp grated lemon rind
- 1 Tbs lemon juice
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until finely chopped and mixture sticks together. Roll into balls or shape into squares.
Nutrition
Fruit Caramels
Ingredients
- 1/4 pound pitted dates
- 1/4 pound dried figs
- 1/4 pound pound raisins
- 1/4 pound coconut
- 1/4 pound pound nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, cashews, etc.)
- 2 teaspoon grated orange rind
- teaspoons freshly squeezed orange juice (enough to reach the right consistency)
Instructions
- Put all ingredients into a food processor and process until finely chopped and the mixture sticks together. If you find the mixture is dry, squeeze in orange juice until it starts to stick together.
- Press into a loaf pan and cut into squares. Or form into squares or balls by hand.
Nutrition
Have you ever made dried fruit and nut candy? What are your favorite combinations?
My 84 yr old mom talked about fruit candy that her mother made. She mentioned that it was made after Thanksgiving then wrapped in brandy coated cheese cloth then it was ready for Christmas Anyone heard of this?
I wanted to try to make the Dried Fruit Candy, but when I saw the calorie count I wondered if that is for the complete batch or a single piece. It seems quite a lot of calories for a single piece.
You can make them smaller, it depends on how big you make them, I erred on the larger side.
The nutrition info for the dried fruit candy says a single 10g piece is 1004 kcal, 82 g of sugar and 62 g of fat. Surely that is not correct? Seems out by an order of magnitude.
I have looked all over your wonderful site before it occurred to me that you don’t have purple hull peas, lol! I’m so sorry! Anyway, the food probably doesn’t matter too much but I’m having a problem with the water disappearing from the top 2/3 of the jar. I have tried a variety of different things but nothing seems to change this from happening. Can you please advise me? I’m using different pressure cookers and getting the same results too.
Hi Lexie,
What you’re experiencing is very common and normal when canning a shelled pea or bean. As long as at least 1/2 the liquid is still in the jar you’re okay. You can try packing it slightly looser (less beans) so there’s a little bit more liquid as the peas are soaking up the liquid as the cook during the canning process.
Is it okay to add other kind of nuts?
Sure! Feel free to sub in with what you have
It looks so tempting. I cannot wait to make this one for my kids. And most of my ingredients that i bought is from online store. I recommend this online store that all their best products are mostly dried fruits and nuts and really best seller. If you have time, you can check this out:
https://gourmetnutsanddriedfruit.com/
Fresh or dried fruit can transform an average candy into a decadent treat. Here you will find fruit candy recipes involving fresh, dried, and candied fruit, along with chocolate, nuts, and great candy ingredients. Visit us at https://gourmetnutsanddriedfruit.com/
Oh these sound delish and very much like the date snacks my mom gets at Whole foods, will have to get be this recipe a try for our camping trip snacks list
Brenda,
They were fabulous. Everyone on the trip loved them and I highly recommend them.
Andrea, is there a storage life for these? Must they be eaten within a few days or can something be added to lengthen their storage life?
I have never kept ours beyond a week, simply because they don’t last that long! I do store them in the fridge, although we take them hiking and canoeing with us all the time and they seem to be fine. If you really wanted them to keep for longer you could try and make them without the orange juice, as dried fruit and nuts by themselves have great storage life. You might need to take out or reduce the coconut to get them to hold together without the liquid, but it would definitely be worth a try!