Charoset Petit Fours

Thanks go to my friend Sima Gordon for sparking the idea for this one, from an idea she gave me years ago on how to do this in a log form. When we ate these, I found they served great semi-frozen, just a few minutes out of the freezer…

• 200 grams (about 1½ cups) dried dates, pitted and checked for bugs
• ½ cup yellow raisins
• 100 grams (about ¾ cup) dried apricots
• 1 green apple, shredded
• 3 t. semi-dry red wine
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 cup finely ground walnuts
• ½ cup finely shredded coconut, optional

Method

Check all the dried fruit for bugs according to the laws of the area that you live in. Place them all into your food processor, fitted with the metal blade. Add in the green apple, wine, and cinnamon. Puree until smooth, stopping and scraping down the sides of the processor as necessary. Scrape the contents of the bowl into a plastic container and refrigerate it until it is firm enough to roll into balls. If you want to do this quicker, put the container into the freezer for one hour.

To create the petit fours:

Removing just a small amount of the mixture at a time, so the rest stays firm, roll it into bite-sized balls, then roll it into the finely ground nuts (and the coconut, if you choose to use it). Place each one on a baking tray lined with plastic or directly into tiny decorative muffin liners. Once they are all rolled and coated, slide them back into the freezer until use. Alternately, you can use a long, rectangular plastic container and line up the petit fours in one row. Continue by covering them with a piece of parchment paper and then lining up the next row on top of them.

TIP:

This makes a lot of small petit fours, so you may want to corral your younger people to do the molding and rolling for you!