New Discovery: Pluots

When I was picking up a few things at the grocery store with my hubby earlier this week, I immediately saw a fruit that I had never heard of or seen before - the pluot. I was intrigued by the name and its color so I had to pick one up to see what this fruit is all about!

After doing a little research, I found out that the pluot is a hybrid between a plum and an apricot. While the closely-related plumcots and apriplums are first generation hybrids, meaning they have a pretty even ratio between their parent fruits, the pluot is a later generation fruit with more plum than apricot characteristics. 

The skin of my particular pluot was a beautiful orange and yellow color with some red speckles throughout. Funnily enough, when I went back to the grocery store two days later, the new batch of pluots were much lighter in color. With at least 30 varieties of the fruit, it's not too surprising that there will be variety in the fruit's color and flavor.

The fruit had some bitterness from the skin, as you would expect from a plum, and was very sweet on the inside. The balance of sweet and tart made for a very tasty after-dinner treat. Now that I know what the fruit is and how delicious it is, I'm ready to eat some more and incorporate them into a tasty dessert. Happy pluot-ing!