Please Sir, I don’t want any more! (Favourite Homemade Christmas Recipes)

Member Name: gothiron

Product:	Favourite Homemade Christmas Recipes
Date:	03/12/01 (149 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap & Quick, Easy & Tasty, Can't buy it in the shops!

Disadvantages: Flipping hot, Too popular if you want seconds, Tough if you hate pineapple

Christmas pudding, like mice pies (as they were referred to last week) is part of the great Christmas culinary traditions and yet, what is the alternative festive pud for those of us who either have had enough of the main course to now resemble a Christmas Pud, or else just plainly don’t like the awful thing? Step forward Gothiron’s Hot Pineapple Wowser!

Well actually it’s more accurate to say Gothiron’s Mums HPW as I had to ring her for the actual recipe, my version being not particularly measured and more estimated.

Serves 4 – 6 but if you want to up the servings, just up the ingredients!

1 medium (4/6 oz) can of pineapple pieces in natural juice – rings/slices do just as well so get whatever is cheapest, chunks tend to retain the heat too much and scald your tongue.

2 medium sized free range eggs (doesn’t have to be Free range, it’s your conscience!)
2 oz caster sugar
½ oz of butter/marg/suitable spread of your choice
2 tablespoons of plain flour
Few drops of vanilla essence (or if you’re me, the whole lot as the lid was loose)
Water

Method

Pre heat the oven to Gas Mark 5 (or whatever temperature it’s at depending on what you are already cooking.

Unearth a suitable sized oven proof dish, this recipe works best if you have something like an oval Pyrex/glass dish, medium sized is fine.

Strain the pineapple, retaining the juice and put the fruit into the bottom of the bowl.

Use the butter and flour to make a basic sauce base (ie melt the fat, remove from the heat, add the flour and mix until smooth, returning to the heat if necessary.

Add sufficient water to the fruit juice to bring it up to ½ pint and stir this into the sauce base. Return to the heat until smooth consistency is achieved. Remove from heat and allow to cool off to blood warm (ie you can stick your finger in to it without burning
yourself)

Separate the eggs and slowly add the yolks to the sauce mixture, add vanilla drops and stir in until a thickish sauce is achieved. Return to the heat if sauce won’t thicken but don’t boil. Remove from heat and cool, then pour over pineapple.

Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl and gradually add the egg white until soft peaks form in the mixture.

This isn’t going to be a rock hard meringue but not a soggy one either. If you want, add a pince of Cream of Tartar to the mixture if it is given you grief. Add more sugar if you have a sweet tooth.

Once meringue looks like a badly designed wedding dress, spread evenly over the pineapple & sauce mixture, wipe the edges of the bowl clean (to stop burning) and shove in the oven for as long as you need. If you are only cooking this then 30mins at gas mark 5 does it nicely, if you are using the oven for othe things, just bung it in on the lowest shelf and check. It’s not a souffle, it can take the oven door opening to look at it. Like all good Gothiron creations it's robust and can take some handling!

It’s ready, not when the smoke alarm goes off, but when the top is golden and springy to the touch. Serve hot, remind guests that it is very hot and to wait a sec before diving it. Unless you have obnoxious dinner guests that you wish to silence for an hour, in that case tell them not to wait and tuck in!

It’s not terribly high in fat (certainly not compared to Chrissy Pud) but isn’t the most slimming of meals either – but then what’s the point of low fat puddings!

Variations
I guess you could stick in appropriate alcohol into the sauce if you like or subsitute other canned fruits but I’ve never tried this so this is your moment for experimentation.

Fresh pineapple isn’t good for this recipe as it seems to curdle the sauce – if you want a really simpl
e desser for fresh pineapple then chill slices of pineapple, sprinkle them with brown sugar and whack them under the grill to carmelise (or blow torch them if you have that handy!) serve with brandy snaps and gorge!


So what are the origins of this seemingly fool proof pud that has been adored by members of the Gothiron clan for the last 40+ years?

According to Mother Gothiron, it was a recipe from the 1957 Christmas Edition of Radio Times and was designed as a children’s pudding that you could stick in the oven whilst eating the main dinner. As there is nothing particularly festive about it, other than mum only making it at Christmas, it’s a great pud for all year round but it always reminds me of Christmas!!

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