Julie Goodwin

Serving size: Serves 8
Cuisine type: British/Scottish/Irish
Cooking time: More than 1 hour
Course: Entree
Favourite flavours: Chocolate, Easy recipes

While appreciating wintry Christmas traditions, such as roast turkey and hot puddings, I am grateful that we get to celebrate Christmas in summer. A hot day, a cold drink, a swim before lunch and a snooze after – that’s my Christmas.
This dessert is a nod to the traditional pudding in shape only, but being ice-cream, it suits our climate. This is for adults, as it contains alcohol. A child-friendly version can be made by substituting the dried and glacé fruits with fresh strawberries and raspberries, mini marshmallows, Maltesers and chunks of white chocolate. For the kids, make it in a cone-shaped mould and it will look like a Christmas tree. Drizzle with milk chocolate ganache instead of dark.

INGREDIENTS

½ cup (75g) dried Turkish apricots, chopped finely
½ cup (75g) dried peaches, chopped finely
1⁄3 cup (80ml) Malibu
2 x 1 litre good-quality vanilla ice-cream
½ cup (75g) dried pineapple, chopped finely
100g glacé cherries, halved
100g nougat, chopped
100g white chocolate, chopped finely
200g dark cooking chocolate, chopped
½ cup (125ml) cream

METHOD

Soak apricots and peaches in the Malibu in a medium bowl for about 2 hours. Stir and squash them around every half an hour or so. By the time they go into the pudding, about half the Malibu should be absorbed into the fruit and the rest should be syrupy.

Meanwhile, spray a 2 litre (8 cup) pudding basin or glass mixing bowl with cooking spray. Line the bowl with plastic or freezer wrap, keeping it as smooth as possible. Leave plenty of plastic wrap overlapping the edges of the bowl.

Scoop the ice-cream into a large bowl to soften slightly. It should not be too soft, or the fruit will all end up at the bottom of the basin.

Stir the Malibu mixture, pineapple, cherries, nougat and white chocolate into ice-cream. Spoon mixture into the prepared pudding basin. Cover, freeze for 6 hours or overnight.

Heat the dark chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl over a barely simmering pan of water. Make sure the bowl is not touching the water. Stir with a metal spoon until melted. The chocolate ganache will thicken as it cools.

When ready to serve, turn out the pudding onto a cold serving plate. Working quickly, remove the plastic wrap and pour a little of the cooled ganache on top, allowing it to run down the sides a little bit.

Cut into wedges with a sharp knife dipped in hot water and cleaned after each cut. Serve with remaining chocolate ganache. Put any leftover straight back into the freezer.