Are Raisins Still A Thing?

[TheLeadbetterLife]

When I was a kid, raisins were everywhere. My parents were very into the 70s / 80s wholefood, grow-your-own thing, so we never had sweets or chocolate (except cooking chocolate) in the house. We had raisins (Nanna had sweets though...).

Breakfast was bran flakes or weetabix with raisins (plus extra wheatgerm). We had those little red boxes of raisins in our lunchboxes. Baking usually had raisins in it - chocolate was for birthday cakes. Puddings were almost always fruit based as well (e.g. stewed damsons with custard).

To this day I love dried fruit, especially the extravaganza of it at Christmas.

Are raisins still big? I suppose there's anxiety about the sugar content now, but they have loads of fibre, which possibly compensates.

Me too.

I’m glad you found your book OP!

DH has some for lunch every day and makes sure DS3 has a teeny box in his lunch. DS1 has a kilo bag at work that he adds to his raisin granola as it "isn't raisiny enough." DS2 has inherited my dislike of them, but my dislike comes from my dad adding them to curries, bread and butter pudding, porridge and - most heinously - to vanilla cupcakes, where they looked like chocolate chips (yeah!) until you ate them (boo!)

Mine too! I go to make a nice bara brith and I find the packet with about a tablespoon left (because that means he didn't eat them all - see also virtually empty hummus pots put back in the fridge)

@TemporarilyCantDoMyself and everyone else interested! It's a very old recipe from a book on "Economical Cookery" and it's absolutely lovely with golden syrup on, straight out of the oven.

4oz plain flour
1 egg
1/2 pint milk
Tsp cinnamon/mixed spice
Tbsp sugar
Handful raisins
Oil for the tin (or you can use lard, I do sometimes if I'm throwing caution to the wind)

Make batter with flour egg and milk
Add fruit and cinnamon and sugar

Heat oil in a round baking tin (Cake tin is what I use)

Stir batter well, pour it in the tin and bake it 180c 35/40 minutes.

It'll be soft and slightly wobbly in the middle and crispy on the outside.

Thanks @DreamingOfGeneHunt - that does sound very scrummy and I'm gonna try it. I think with cream or vanilla ice cream...😋

I have sultanas (so not that different) with my breakfast every morning or sometimes dried apricots. Its an easy way of getting one of your 5 a day as you only need a small amount as a portion. That's worth it for me regardless of sugar.

I used to give DS a little box of raisins in the trolley at the supermarket (10 years ago now though). They were great as they were sugary enough for him to think they were a treat but more healthy than chocolate...and it'd take him ages to get them out the box so kept him occupied. I remember some advice once to give kids cheese after dried fruit, I think!

I buy big bags of sultanas and raisins and put them in porridge, apple crumble, etc.

@OfAllThePlaces get yourself to Tesco for some Flame raisins. Big, fat & juicy, lovely in my porridge!

Didnt raisins go on strike?

I think sultanas crossed the picket lines and so now we have to eat those.

Raisins are my currant favourite 😊

I love raisins. Especially when combined with oats! 😍

I am aware that they’re pretty bad for teeth. But nutritionally speaking they must still be better than a „pack of sweets“!

30g of raisins counts as one of your five a day so they can't be that bad!!

www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/5-a-day/5-a-day-what-counts/

I've started having them on my porridge instead of blueberries after realising how unpleasant blueberries are.

I used to love a baked apple with raisins in the core. Must have been in some kind of sugar syrup. Delicious 😋

You just put the raisins, brown sugar and butter in the core hollow, before baking. The juice comes out of the apple and makes the sauce with the butter and sugar.

I put them in my porridge (winter) and homemade granola (summer).

And soak them in rum and bake into banana bread
https://www.nigella.com/recipes/banana-bread😋

You can’t get the little boxes of Sun Maid raisins any more.

Well how do you make fruit scones without raisins?

I used some this week when I made granola. And as pp just said, what about fruit scones!

As a life long raisin hater, I find them in far too many foods! Raisin bread rolls (thought it was olive) and raisin granola (sneakily hidden within the granola) both made an unexpected appearance on our recent cruise! Nothing is safe from raisins in my experience and they pop up far too often!

Oh wheatgerm! Id forgotten about that! My dm sounds similar, no junk & we snacked on raisins (strictly monitored!) It was the 70s & we wanted all the brightly coloured sweets. Mum said they were full of chemicals, she was way ahead of her time on UPFs. We didn't appreciate it at the time though!
I still love raisins, they taste especially good out of those little boxes.

I want bread and butter pudding now.