Orange cream to the rescue

This orange cream recipe is a classic emergency pudding and it’s more of a concept than anything else.
You could experiment with substituting tinned gooseberries for the apricots and using a mix of elderflower cordial and lemons for the orange element.
Or you could try using a cocktail of tinned lychees and maybe peaches or pineapples.
Or you could try using tinned lychees and fresh raspberries or strawberries. .
If you don’t have any tinned fruit, but you have, for example, dried apricots or prunes you could soak them in hooch and use them instead – you want 240g/8 oz drained weight for each fruit.
And the nuts are important – they add a bit of structure and crunch.
But basically if your larder runs to double cream, some nuts and some fruit – fresh, dried or tinned, you’re made. Panic over.
Recipe for rescuing orange cream
Serves 6
Ingredients
- 1 x 240g/8 oz tin apricots or peaches, drained
- 3 oranges or another 240g/8 oz fruit in some form or other
- 240ml/1 cup double cream
- 3 tbsps chopped nuts – dry-fried
- Soft brown sugar or honey to taste
Method
- Wash the oranges, take off the zest and reserve for garnish, and slice with the skin on
- Put the oranges and apricots into a saucepan, cover, and simmer gently for about 20 minutes.
- Drain off any excess liquid (reserve this liquid) and use a stick blender to blend the fruit in the saucepan. Leave it to cool.
- Taste the mixture – it might be a little bitter because of the citrus skin – if it is add a little sugar or honey.
- The fruit purée needs to be the consistency of the thick cream you’re using, if it’s too stiff add back the reserved liquid, a little at a time until it’s the right consistency. If you don’t have enough liquid use whatever strong hooch (liqueur of some sort) you have to hand.
- Lightly whip the cream and stir it into the mixture.
- Pour into individual bowls, sprinkle with the zest, put in the fridge for a minimum of four hours, ideally overnight.
- Serve garnished with the nuts.

Some wonderful Ennio Moricone music to listen to as you make this easy pud, and a film clip to inspire you about oranges and Italy…. from Malèna.