Grilled fruit over an open fire – firm fruit, gentle embers and the sugar last

Firm, gentle, last – the rule of thumb

Three words are all it takes for grilled fruit to turn out well.

• Firm. Choose fruit that holds its shape and is slightly underripe. It softens on the grill anyway.
• Gentle. Grill over the cooler side of the bed of embers, never over flames. Fruit needs medium heat, not the fierce heat a steak wants.
• Last. Honey, sugar and syrup burn quickly. Brush or sprinkle them on only in the last minute, or on the plate afterwards.

How to divide the bed of embers into a hot side and a cooler side, and how to feel the heat with your hand, is explained in grills and fish baskets over a fire.

Which fruit holds its shape?

What decides it is how much structure the flesh keeps when it's heated.

• Holds up best: pineapple, firm apples and firm pears. They can be turned several times, stay on the skewer and can be grilled in thick slices. Good if you're grilling fruit for the first time.
• Holds up if firm: peach, nectarine and watermelon. Peaches and nectarines should be grilled in halves with the skin on, so the skin holds them together. Watermelon needs the rind as a handle and should just get stripes, not sit for long.
• Delicate: plums, ripe pears and figs. They go soft in a couple of minutes and collapse if forgotten. Grill them last and stay by the grill.
• Not suited to a grill: berries, kiwi and citrus wedges. The berries fall through and the kiwi turns to mush. Put berries in a saucepan instead and make a warm compote to pour over the grilled fruit.

Banana is best grilled in its own skin with chocolate in the slit – it has its own recipe, banana in foil with chocolate and cinnamon. Whole stuffed apples belong in apples baked in the embers.

Ripeness decides

Press gently with your thumb near the stalk.

• Right: the fruit gives a little but springs back. The peach smells fragrant but isn't soft.
• Too ripe: your thumb leaves a dent. That fruit turns to mush on the grill and gets stuck between the bars. Better to eat it fresh for pudding.
• Too unripe: completely hard, with no scent. It burns on the outside before it softens inside. Cut it thinner and leave it longer on the cool side.

A pineapple that smells sweet at the base and where an inner leaf in the crown comes away when you pull it is usually just ripe enough.

Approximate times per fruit

The times are approximate and apply to medium heat, that is when you can hold your hand about a hand's width above the grill for five to seven seconds. Embers, wind and thickness change the time more than which fruit it is, so watch the fruit and not the clock.

• Pineapple, 1.5-centimetre slices: 3–4 minutes per side. Done when the stripes are dark golden and the slice bends a little.
• Peach and nectarine, halves: 4–5 minutes cut side down, then 2–3 minutes on the skin side. Done when the cut surface has stripes and a knife goes in easily.
• Pear, halves: 4–5 minutes cut side down and 3–4 minutes on the skin side. A hard pear may need a few more minutes on the cool side.
• Apple, 1.5-centimetre slices: 3–4 minutes per side. Done when the slice is soft at the edge but still has a little bite in the middle.
• Plum, halves: 2–3 minutes cut side down and 1–2 minutes on the skin side. Take them off when they start to release juice.
• Watermelon, 2-centimetre triangles: 1–2 minutes per side, just until the stripes show. The melon should be cold and crisp inside.
• Fruit skewers with mixed pieces: 6–8 minutes, turning a quarter turn at a time.

Sugar that burns

Fruit already has sugar in it. That's why it gets its dark stripes so quickly, and why it burns just as quickly. If you also add honey or brown sugar from the start, it drips into the embers, flares up and leaves a bitter black film on the fruit before it has had time to warm through.

At home and by the fire

At home. Peel and cut the pineapple, halve the apples and pears and put them in a tub with a lid. A splash of lemon or lime over the apples and pears stops them going brown. Peaches and plums are best halved by the fire, as the cut surface goes soft and brown in the tub. Rinse and dry the watermelon rind before cutting it, otherwise whatever is on the rind follows the knife into the flesh. Put the cut melon in the cool box and leave it there until it goes on the grill.

The cool box. Quark, yoghurt and ice cream are chilled foods. Pack them in a cool box with ice packs, keep the box in the shade and don't leave them out for more than two hours in summer heat, and never in the sun. Ice cream only lasts a short while even in a good cool box, so plan to eat it first, or choose quark, which doesn't melt but also needs to be kept cold. There's more about the cool box in the guide to washing up outdoors.

By the fire. Grill the fruit after the meal, when the grill is already hot. Scrape off sausage fat and leftovers before the fruit goes on, otherwise the pineapple tastes of barbecued sausage. If you're lighting a new fire for the fruit, wait until the flames have gone – it's quicker with the right wood, see lighting a fire.

Skewers or grill?

A grill suits large pieces: pineapple slices, peach halves, pear halves and melon triangles. They sit steadily and get clear stripes. A fish basket is even better for delicate fruit, because you turn all the pieces at once.

Skewers suit smaller pieces, about three centimetres in size, and make it easier for the children to have their own portion. Only put firm fruit together on the same skewer – pineapple, apple and pear – and grill delicate fruit separately, otherwise the plum is mush by the time the pineapple is done. Wooden skewers should soak in water for at least half an hour so the ends don't burn off. If you have no skewers, the children can whittle their own roasting sticks from fresh sticks you've cut at home, see whittling a roasting stick and a tripod.

With no grill at all, you can put the fruit on a hot griddle pan or in a dry cast-iron frying pan. You won't get stripes, but the sugar caramelises just as nicely.

Acidic fruit and aluminium foil

Foil on the grill can seem clever, so nothing sticks and nothing falls through. But fruit counts as acidic food, and Livsmedelsverket advises against cooking or storing acidic food in contact with aluminium foil, because aluminium can then leach into the food. This applies even more when the foil is also lying against a grill made of a different metal and the juice is sizzling around it.

• Grill the fruit directly on a clean, oiled grill, or in a fish basket.
• If you still want to make parcels of delicate fruit: put a sheet of baking paper innermost and the foil outside, so the fruit lies against the paper.
• Another option is a cast-iron pan or a saucepan, which doesn't have that problem.

How to fold the parcels and where to place them in the embers is explained in foil parcels in the embers.