PixieCooks

I had a jar of pear halves in juice in the fridge, a guest over and a serious craving for something sweet (I don’t generally keep biscuits or cakes in the house). After a little disconsolate poking around in the fridge and cupboards I remembered the lovely Apple Enchilada Dessert that Liz guest blogged over at $5 Dinners and this lush pudding was born. Nom.

Serves 4
Ingredients

• 250g/1 Cup (Granulated) Sugar
• 100ml/ 1/4 Cup Water
• 1tsp Ground Ginger
• 1tsp Ground Cinnamon
• 1pinch Ground AllSpice
• 100ml/ 1/4 Double/Heavy Cream
• 16 Pear Halves in Juice, drained
• 4 Soft Flour Tortillas

Method
Place the sugar and water in a strong based saucepan and bring up to the boil. Keep stirring (carefully! Hot sugar is a little like lava) and heating until the mixture turns a light caramel colour.

Add the spices (the mixture will foam up) and cream – stirring throroughly to ensure the sugar doesn’t seize on contact with the cold cream. If it does heat it gently to re-melt it.

Remove caramel from heat and add the pears.

Divide the pear caramel mixture between the tortillas and roll up. Serve with vanilla ice cream or pouring cream. Also delicious cold.

In the usual retail tradition of selling seasonal foods for at least 3 months longer than appropriate our shops have had Hot Cross Buns on sale since the new year (although perhaps we’re just trying to get back to pre-Elizabethan tradition and it has nothing to do with cynical commerce), and they’ve also had vast numbers of them reduced for a quick sale because they’re heading to staleness. Now, a stale Hot Cross Bun is a horribly disappointing thing, but they make a cracking base for a not-quite bread-and-butter pudding.

serves 4-6
Ingredients

• 4 Hot Cross Buns
• 3 Eggs
• 1 Can Evaporated Milk (you can use normal milk, it’s just slightly less rich
• 2 Tbsp Sugar (I used normal granulated)
• 3 Tsp Ginger Jam/preserve

Method
Slice the hotcross buns (as if you were slicing bread) and pack tightly into a bakable dish. Make sure none of the edges are sticking up terribly far beyond the top. Dot the jam over the top of the buns.

Whisk together the eggs, sugar and evaporated milk.

Pour over the buns, ensuring that all the pieces of bun are at least doused in the liquid – press them down if neccessary.

Cook in the oven at 200C (180C fan/400F/Gas Mark 6) for 15-20 minutes.

Serve hot, cold or reheated in the microwave.

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday (you may call it Mardis Gras) and traditionally one makes pancakes to use up those things that will be given up for Lent. I’m giving up crisps (chips) which have never notably been a pancake ingredient, but still, it was pancake day and they’re about the easiest “baking” in the world.

Ingredients

• Plain (AP) flour
• Large Egg(s)
• Milk

Method
I haven’t included quantites, as they’ll depend on how many you want to make and how thick you want them – the ratio is 1 egg per 1/4 pt (a generous 1/2 cup) milk with as much flour as you can beat in to make a runny batter. How runny exactly you want the batter to be, you’ll find out with experience, but I use about 2oz (50g/ 1/2 a cup) per egg. A one egg batter makes an ample sufficiency for two, and probably enough for 3, and will keep in the fridge for a couple of days (if it seperates, which it probably will, just stir it back together).

Use a non-stick frying pan (skillet) on a medium heat (and don’t worry if you have to chuck the first pancake, that’s entirely normal) and cook only a little at a time (I use a fairly small ladle which makes perfect “scotch pancake” sized pancakes and cook one at a time, keeping the made pancakes warm on a warm plate under a clean teatowel).

Ladle the batter into the pan and leave it until the batter starts to bubble and the bubbles leave little holes in the top side. You can, if you watch the pancake closely, see that the batter is more or less “set” by the time the pancake is holey and you can then turn over and cook for a similar amount of time on the other side – watching to check it doesn’t get burnt and browning up each side to your heart’s desire.

Serve hot with sugar and lemon juice (or if you’re feeling sweet toothed try chocolate spread, jam or sweet chesnut puree). Thinner batters make more “rollable” pancakes, thicker ones are better with a fork.

Nigel Slater has a great deal to answer for, not least that he describes food in an entirely hungry-making fashion. I had a notion for some kind of pudding last night, and nothing readily apparent in the pudding milieu, but some digging around in the freezer found some aged frozen berries (one of those “suitable for smoothies summer berries” mixes with strawberries and blueberries and things) and a sad scraping of vanilla ice cream. A little sugar and spice made for a lovely, lovely pud.

Makes quite a lot, but it keeps in the fridge
Ingredients

• Bag frozen summer berries (or any berries, if they’re not frozen they won’t need so much cooking
• Light brown muscovado sugar (or any sugar, but this has a warmer flavour that’s good with the spice. Given I was using frozen berries so old that they may have been out of date, I just used what I had)
• Powdered ginger, to taste
• Powdered cinnamon, to taste
• Pinch of all-spice (this is really just as a back note, so substantially less than the other spices)
• Boiling water (I used about the same volume as I had fruit, but my fruit had freezer burn and needed re-hydrated)

Method
Bung everything in a wide (non-stick) pan, and keep stirring as it boils so it doesn’t catch. Some of the fruit will burst (frozen berries have already had their internal structure mushed a bit, so it doesn’t take much) and it will begin to thicken.

Pour over ice-cream and enjoy.

Will keep in the fridge (becomes like a loose jam), reheats in the microwave in about 1 minute and the cool compote is good stirred into plain yoghurt.