Pear and Custard Pudding

Pudding doesn’t have to be complicated. Whether you have three ingredients or eight, as long as they work in harmony with one another you’ll always end up with a cracking dessert. Using only four ingredients – if you count the custard as one – this recipe for Pear and Custard Pudding is as simple and effective as it gets. The perfect weeknight, frugal pudding. Oh, and did I mention it has custard?

Egg custard, usually reserved for the perimeter of a crumble, or the base of a sponge is actually a great pud in itself. Throw a little juicy, perfectly ripe fruit into the mix, along with a sprinkling of something sweet and spicy and in a jiffy you’ll have a fantastic finale to any meal.

The key to this impressively easy sweet is the use of perfectly ripe fruit. Give your pears time to ripen – outside of the fridge. If you shirk this responsibility not only will your pears lack any sweetness, they simply won’t be pleasant to eat. Hard pears make a better practical joke than they do foodstuff. Using ingredients at the right time – not rushing things – is often the difference between roaring success and complete failure.

Pear and Custard Pudding

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 1 batch of homemade egg custard
• 4 ripe pears
• ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp caster sugar

Method:

1. Prepare your custard according to the instructions in my previous recipe. While the custard is still hot dice the pears into cubes of roughly 1cm.
2. Take 4 serving dishes and pour ¼ of the prepare custard into each. Top with the diced fruit. Mix together the cinnamon and sugar – sprinkle over the dessert. Serve immediately.

Cost: This recipe could scarcely be simpler. Including the time it takes to make four servings of custard you could whip this dish up in less than 30 minutes. Simple dishes also tend to be the most frugal and pear and custard pudding does nothing to buck that trend. Indeed, four servings comes in at a temptingly priced £2.50.