Cold Fruit Soup Recipe. Gluten-Free
Cold fruit soup is an exuberant celebration of summer.
You will love the ruby color and tart flavors of red fruit.
Cold Fruit Soup is equally at home as a soup or a dessert.
Even in the heart of summer, I make this cold fruit soup with frozen berries and rhubarb, just because nothing can beat their sweetness and ease of preparation. Frozen berries would not be just an acceptable substitute: they would be quite wonderful, as frozen fruit are picked at their sweetest and ripest. Try them in this recipe. The fact that they are a little bruised by freezing will not matter in the least since we are cooking them. Of course, if you have lots of beautiful fresh berries and/or rhubarb on hand, go ahead and use them. In season, add plums, cherries, etc. If you are a berry lover, try my Berry Trifle too! Or my Yogurt Berry Parfait!
Did you know Beet and Berries make perfect smoothies?
This is a smoothie I whip up in no time, as I always have on hand frozen berries, and vacuum-packed roasted beets. Blend with a little plain yogurt and ice, and you’ve got yourself a super healthy smoothie, as fantastic as ice cream!
Be sure to select all red fruit
This is above all a berry soup. In a mood for another cold fruit soup? Try pale green, with my Cold Yogurt Fruit Soup!
Simplified version of cold fruit soup:
In a pinch, do nothing more than mix the mixed frozen berries with pomegranate juice, creme de cassis and optional red wine (no cooking!), and sweeten with a little maple syrup. Here I would insist to use frozen, not fresh, berries and cherries. Just mix and chill. And if you use cranberries too, grind them coarsely in a food processor, and add a little more maple syrup, so as to offset the tartness of the cranberries.
Maple syrup goes beautifully with the soup, but date syrup will work too
Cold fruit soup is incredibly versatile!
So many exciting uses! Use it in a trifle, in a parfait (recipe links above), mix it with plain yogurt. Blend it smooth and use it as fruit sauce with cake or ice cream. Pour it into popsicle molds.
You can even serve it with roasts! Since it is tart and very moderately sweetened, it will harmonize perfectly.
This is why I like to make a nice large recipe: Not a smidgen of it will go to waste!
Ingredients
- 10 cups total fresh or frozen (I prefer frozen) strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, peaches, pitted cherries, plums (in any combination you like)
- A mixture of the following spices, tied in a cheesecloth: 1 large piece lemon peel, 1 large piece orange peel, 6 cloves, 10 black peppercorns
- 2 cups dry red wine (liquor stores)
- 4 cups unsweetened cranberry or pomegranate juice
- ¼ cup Crème de Cassis (liquor stores; Passover: any nice berry liqueur)
- ½ to 2∕3 cup maple syrup (start with less and wait until you taste the finished soup to add more)
- ½ cup tapioca flour or arrowroot, whisked with a little cold water until smooth (for Passover: tapioca or potato starch)
Instructions
Bring all but last ingredient to boil in a heavy pot. Reduce the heat to medium low, add the tapioca mixture, and cook 10 more minutes, no more. Remove the cheesecloth. Cream the soup with an immersion blender, but not completely. Leave up to half the soup chunky. Adjust the texture and seasonings. Chill completely before serving. Serve as a first course, alone or with a scoop of plain yogurt (dairy-free perfect too), or as a dessert, alone or with a scoop of coconut sorbet.
Variation: Strawberry Rhubarb Soup
Use 10 cups combined strawberries and rhubarb, and no other berries. Proceed exactly as above. You might need to add more maple syrup, rhubarb being quite tart.
Makes a good first course servings.
How many appetizer servings does this make? Thanks!
Sharon I added the number of servings.
Thanks, saw it after I posted. I don’t think I’ve ever seen fresh rhubarb. Is frozen ok for this recipe?
Sharon, absolutely! Frozen rhubarb is awesome, I said so in the recipe!
Levana, my Scandinavian ancestors loved these cold fruit soups, and they are so good for Shavuot. I also have recipes for cold rose hip soup and for buttermilk soup (yum!). Great stuff. If you’ve never had buttermilk soup, you’ve not lived!
Ziva I and many more would be grateful if you shared that recipe! Sounds wonderful!