I don’t choose to try things, unless I know my kidlets or I will actually use them, so two items came top of my list recently, one of them being the jujube fruit
I’m a date snob, in that the only ones I like are Medjool dates, and I eat loads of them in a month. They stop me craving sweets, and as they taste so caramel like, I never feel the need to eat any sweets. That’s why I said yes to trying the Jujube dried fruit.
Abakus Jujube
Image Courtesy of Abakus Foods
The Jujube fruit, from Abakus Foods, is known as a red date, and has been eaten in Asia for thousands of years. Jujube tells me that it’s used in Chinese Medicine for vitality and wellbeing. As a natural sweetener, it was worth a try, and I wondered if the dried Jujube fruit might be an alternative for my Medjool date obsession. It’d be nice to have something slightly different.
Dried Jujube Fruit 
You know when you open a pack of sweets, and five minutes later the pack is empty, depsite resolving only to try a couple? Yup, that was me. Couldn’t stop popping these into my mouth.
They tasted sweet, quite dry and spongy, with a slightly nutty taste to me. It’s very pleasant indeed. I could quite easily eat these instead of sweets though, which is always a good thing when it comes to fruit. At 289 calories per 100g, a whole pack from Abakus only weighs 40g, which is the perfect snack size. At 115 calories for about 14 of these red dates, it’s a great snack for me. They’re a source of antioxidants and have no added sugar.
I’m hoping I can find these easily in shops to be honest. They lasted me longer than a packet of crisps.
Suggestions from Abakus are to enjoy as a snack, add to porridge, salad and soups, use in baked goods and add to smoothies. The actual dates, I’d just eat as they are. I did eat them as they were. I wouldn’t need suggestions for how to use these, they’re among my new favourites.
Jujube Crisps 
Jujube Foods says these are crunchy, light and sweet. I found them slightly chewy crunchy, but that was fine, as they’re really really good, and would be much better for me than a packet of crisps when I’ve got a craving. They are slightly higher in calories at 350g per 100g or 72 calories per 20g pack.
They make a decent snack, and would look awesome as part of a party susan, if that’s even what they’re called nowadays, with the lovely bright red colour on the outside and the pale middle.
Jujube Powder
This would be fab for adding to smoothies, desserts and sweet baking. I actually quite liked just eating the powder, as it’s more of a crumbled biscuity texture.
I’d quite like to see how it performed as the base for a cheesecake, but that could work out rather expensive, so perhaps I’d try it to reduce how much of a biscuit base I use.
What do I think?
I had a look to see where I could get some of these, but my local supermarket doesn’t stock them, so I’ll have to head to Abacus itself. Keep an eye out for these on the shelves though, especially if you like dates, and would like to try one with a nutty flavour. I ate both packets of dried fruit and the crisps at once sitting, since both packets were open. I couldn’t help myself……. I’d all good intentions of adding these to cooking, but they didn’t last long enough, although that’s fine at 187 calories for the two packs. That’s a good sign in my world, especially when it’s a healthy food.
Disclaimer: Thanks to Abakus Foods for the review samples.
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