Make your own fruit basket

This year's perfect Christmas gift may look a little like a bright yellow octopus. It has long gnarly tentacles protruding from a bulbous central stem. And it's edible.

Buddha's hand citron, an unusual fruit good mostly for it's lemonlike zest, can be the centerpiece of a make-it-yourself fruit basket. And bitter times make such a gift sweet. Nothing like getting a little grocery help.

Most supermarkets have preassembled fruit baskets and take special orders for custom baskets. But you also can buy your own produce at the markets and assemble the basket yourself.

That's where the Buddha's hand citron — also called finger citron — comes in. We recently found it at Whole Foods Market, where the clerks say the fruit is prized for its fragrant rind. It has little or no pulp or juice, so the entire thing can be grated or sliced to use like lemon rind or made into candied citron for fruitcakes.

The flavor is similar to lemon but distinctively different — more floral and tropical. And that's not all. Clerks at Whole Foods sometimes slip the bulb end up their sleeves and extend it like a hand for fun.

Fruit basket gurus offered tips for turning the usual, such as apples and oranges, and the unusual, such as the fingerlike buddha, into stunning gifts.

Gary Wesley, produce merchandiser for No Frills Supermarkets, has been making fruit baskets for more than 40 years. He started in the Old Market many years ago and joined No Frills about 20 years ago. He thinks he has seen everything possible in fruit baskets.

“It's the perfect gift when you don't know what to buy,” Wesley said. “It's economical for grandma or the paper boy. It's a good gift to give to older folks because a lot of them have about everything. We've had small baskets that kids give their teachers. We've had higher-end baskets where we put in a whole pineapple, salami, crackers, cheese, nuts, berries, different kinds of grapes.”

For a larger family, Wesley said, it's better to buy smaller apples and oranges, so you have more items in the basket — something for everybody. If the recipients are older, focus on softer fruits such as bananas, kiwi and seedless grapes. For a teacher, he suggests many varieties of apples in a shallow, platter-style basket with a container of caramel dip in the center.

Think about the size of your basket and having a variety of produce as you select your fruit, said Jerry Kaufman, produce director for Bag 'N Save, who has been making fruit baskets for about 20 years.

“You want to start with a good foundation, just like you're building a house,” Kaufman said. “Maybe on the bottom, you put the grapefruit because you want a good level bottom layer. Then layers. You don't want to put two red apples together. You want to put an orange or a green apple next to it. It's more eye-appealing that way. I like a bunch of red grapes on top.”

Once you have the basics, add something unexpected or exotic — such as that Buddha's hand citron — to make your gift basket memorable, said Jennifer LaMontia, store director at Broadmoor Market. LaMontia has been making gift baskets for about 12 years, the last two at Broadmoor Market.

“I like to put in things that you might not ordinarily get in a fruit basket: Asian pear, carambola (star fruit) clementines, pomegranates, persimmons and kumquats,” she said. Individually wrapped chocolates or cheese also add appeal.

The finishing touch for a fruit basket is the big bow tied to the handle or the rim.

To get that luxurious look, LaMontia suggests two pieces of ribbon. Tie one into a bow; it can be as simple as the one you tie on your sneakers. Use the second piece to tie a second bow on top of the first one. Then fluff up the loops of the bow.

“Use wide ribbon, with wire in it, so you can shape your bow, versus the plain ribbon that just flops,” LaMontia said. “It looks fancy and you can manipulate it.”

Contact the writer:

444-1052, jane.palmer@owh.com

« Living

Share