My brilliant idea kind of all started when I inadvertently found a new treat for my Whirlpool-sized pooch, Crowley.
I’m a sucker for the word “Clearance”. Honestly, I’d buy a case of the bubonic plague if it had a big yellow sticker and was marked down 90%. I’ve actually found items this way that have become pantry staples (sunflower butter), and other items that I’d give one of my kidneys to find again (Oh, Mrs. Thinster’s Salted Caramel Cookie Thins, where are you?).
But I got a great deal…
So anyway, I eat tons of dried fruit, and found some peaches on a huge markdown. I eat the chewy kind of dried fruit, but these were of the freeze-dried persuasion.
Most dried fruit is dried by the sun or mechanical means, but with enough moisture left to make it sticky and pliable—think raisins or prunes.
On the other hand, freeze-dried fruit is completely desiccated. The process is known as lyophilization. Think the crispy, crumbly Styrofoam-like food sold in camping and survival stores and used by NASA and the military. What I had scored on the sale shelf was freeze-dried peaches.
When I bought them, I figured I’d eat them as little sweet snacks, like candy. I like peaches. But the flavor of these peaches shocked me. I knew they were freeze-dried, I knew that meant that as the ice was drawn off the intensity of their “peach-ness” was magnified; but it must have been by about a million.
They were like the taste of every peach I’d ever eaten. Every can of fruit cocktail, every bowl of cobbler, every Hostess fruit pie had combined to create this huge peach punch to my taste buds. One bite was my limit.
Thus, Crowley’s new treat—he loves them, in all their peachy glory.
A sight to rival Mona Lisa…
Then I saw a recipe for blueberry meringue. Meringue is a chemical, physical reaction that doesn’t leave room for fiddling. Add any type of fat, including egg yolk, and the whole shebang will probably never come together. Add too much liquid, and you get bupkis. You even need to be careful not to overdo it when adding extract or food coloring.
So, for blueberry flavor, the genius who came up with this recipe used dried blueberries!
Which is brilliant, because you get buckets of taste and also as a bonus, it becomes a gorgeous heliotrope color.
Yesterday I made one of my strawberry cakes for a friend’s Easter dinner. After all this freeze-dried fun, I decided to conduct an experiment. 
Instead of plain jam added to the frosting, I added only two tablespoons of jam, and also a couple tablespoons of finely crushed strawberries. It lowered the amount of liquid I needed to use, and made the frosting less likely to get soft and run if the cake was in a warm environment. I also added a couple tablespoons of the crushed berries to the cake crumbs that I pressed into the sides of the cake. This turned the crumbs a really pretty, springy shade of pink; almost Barbie-ville.
The success of the strawberry cake got me thinking about what else could freeze-dried fruit do.
Compound butter. Last week I talked about flavored butter and encouraged imagination and experimentation. So, imagine making a fruit compound butter. What about apples and cinnamon? For those of you with death defying taste buds, how about habañero/mango? Here’s one: An Elvis; freeze-dried bananas, finely chopped peanuts, and crushed crispy bacon.
I believe I’ll have some of that butter on my toast. Thank you very much.
I am no food genius and not the first person to come up with this idea. I’m more of a village idiot who discovered something really cool, but also the town crier who’s telling you about it.
Thanks for your time.
When the rich and famous are interviewed, very often they say the best thing about fame is the people they meet.
Trucks full of money? Oh no.
But people? Yeah, sure.
Just about five years ago, I was in line at Costco, and met the sweetest couple, Victoria and Jefe. They were Puerto Ricans and wonderful cooks of the island’s cuisine. I went to their house for a cooking lesson for the column, and we became friends.
They very much remind me of my parents, whose own generosity is legendary. Once they took me under their wing and decided to be my Caribbean God Parents, they went all in. We meet for coffees and I almost have to wrestle Jefe to let me pay once in a while. Every holiday that rolls around I have an adorable greeting note and gif in my email. They shower me with tons of homemade Puerto Rican foods and extravagant gifts.
So, as often as I can, I make food gifts for them. They’ve had my famous five-chocolate brownies, my brown butter chocolate chips cookies, and my mom’s magically addictive Christmas cookies.
It’s what is known as a compound butter. It can be one of your most versatile ingredients in the kitchen. The butter I made for Jefe and Victoria can be used on toast. But it would also go great on carrots, sweet potatoes, anything with warm sweetish flavors. Schmear it all over a ham biscuit.
I’ll give you the recipe for the butter. But what I’d like to have happen is for your imagination to be inspired. Use the butter on something new. Even something as simple as tweaking the proportions of the recipe I give you. Get in your kitchen and mad scientist some new butters.
A compound butter is kind of like Me
Take these butter ideas and run with them. Use the flavors that you and your family love. Then put the butter on all kinds of interesting foods.
bull city mom 