Is there anything more attractive than a fig perched in a nest of sweet pears and buttery crumble? Of course not. These individual Fig and Pear Crumbles are a great way to impress family members and dinner guests alike at this time of the year. But be quick; fig season is almost over and they’re nigh impossible to get your hands on at a reasonable price once winter hits.
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?
Frugal desserts and puddings are often difficult to put together in a short time frame. Yes, you can boil down berries with a little lemon zest and sugar, but serve you well on a special occasion it will not. This simple recipe for Dried Figs in Honey, however, ticks all the boxes. Not only does it take a matter of minutes to “throw together” it is sweet, decadent and satisfying.
Mystery surrounds the existence of Aussie Crunch; my meagre research suggests that it may be of British origin – it can be found with alternating success is some bakeries – but as far as I can tell, it’s not particularly well known in Australia. Perhaps no one has thought to inform the Aussies of their namesake, so I shall take up that baton (some of you lot must be from Down Under!). Still, they ought to be proud to have such a devilish and delicious snack named after them.
Rice pudding is something of a British institution, served up in insipid and stodgy piles in school canteens up and down the land. Yet the inhabitants of these great isles by and large look upon the non-descript white mass that inhabited the pudding bowls of their formative years through some kind of ironic rose-tinted haze, as though nostalgia alone were enough to carry short grain rice into the upper echelons of the pudding hierarchy. Happily, this isn’t always the case and an increasing number of recipes are proving that rice pudding can be incredible – with this rendition I’d happily claim the proof is in the pudding!