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

1. Wash the oranges, take off the zest and reserve for garnish, and slice with the skin on
2. Put the oranges and apricots into a saucepan, cover, and simmer gently for about 20 minutes.
3. Drain off any excess liquid (reserve this liquid) and use a stick blender to blend the fruit in the saucepan. Leave it to cool.
4. Taste the mixture – it might be a little bitter because of the citrus skin – if it is add a little sugar or honey.
5. 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.
6. Lightly whip the cream and stir it into the mixture.
7. Pour into individual bowls, sprinkle with the zest, put in the fridge for a minimum of four hours, ideally overnight.
8. 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.