Warm Rum and Pineapple dessert..

I’m always looking for special summertime desserts – the sort of thing I can rustle up really quickly, with minimum fuss. It shouldn’t be too difficult, but sometimes I simply run out of ideas! This is when this little gem of a pineapple dish comes into its own. A gorgeous combination of rum-flavoured sauce over warm, griddled fresh pineapple – with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream to completely spoil you and your pals. Give this a go – you won’t be sorry!

( And no, before anyone asks, you can’t use tinned pineapple for this!)

EQUIPMENT:

• a griddle pan (or even a plain frying pan will do)
• A shallow tray for marinating
• a small saucepan to cook the sauce
• A sharp knife to cut the peel off the pineapple.

INGREDIENTS:

One medium pineapple serves about 4 people. It’s really easy to double up for more .

• One fairly ripe fresh Pineapple, peeled, cut into quarters, woody centre bits removed and each quarter cut into 3 slices long ways. (see full description in NOTES below)

• 4 tablespoons of Dark Rum
• 2 ounces of dark brown sugar ( I used dark Muscavado)
• Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon ( optional) and a little for sprinkling later on)
• Low calorie cooking spray
• Vanilla ice cream

 

 

 

METHOD:

• Prepare the pineapple, and put it into a shallow dish in one layer

• Mix the rum, sugar and cinnamon together until they make a liquid sauce (see NOTES)
• Pour the rum mixture over the pineapple, and leave it to marinate for at least 30 minutes, turning the slices over every so often. Rather than spend too much time turning it over, I tend to cover the dish with cling-film, and just slosh it about every so often (or, depending on how busy you are, just ignore it!)
• The recipe can be prepared ahead up to this stage.

When you’re ready to serve:

• Pour all the marinade into the saucepan (leaving as little behind as possible), and heat it until it bubbles up and reduces by half – Careful! This has melted sugar in it and could burn you!

• Then put it to one side to cool a little while you deal with the pineapple.
•  Give the pineapple a quick spray of low calorie spray
•  Heat your griddle pan to medium/hot ( not too hot or the sugar will burn)
• Griddle the slices of pineapple for about 2-3  minutes on each side, (you may need to do this in batches) until they get those lovely brown lines on them. Put to one side as they’re ready.

To serve:

• Put 3 slices of griddled pineapple onto an individual serving plate
• Top with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream
• Drizzle the sauce over, and serve

NOTES:

• This dessert can be served straight away or allowed to cool. It will always be happy to sit for a while.
• I used Captain Morgan Rum for this as it’s slightly spicy ..( Arr, me hearties!)
• Muscavado sugar can be quite lumpy, so try to break them up as much as you can before adding the rum. There were a few small lumps when I poured over the marinade, but it made no difference to the end result.

To prepare a pineapple:

This is how I always prepare my pineapples, but of course you can cut it horizontally too – and remove the woody centre with a sharp knife or apple corer. I find this way easiest, and I’m all for making life easy 😉

• Cut off the top and bottom

 

• stand the pineapple up on one end and slice down from top to bottom:

• Still standing it one its flat side – cut into quarters, then remove the woody centre, so that they look like the picture below:

 

• Remember to check that you’ve removed any extra little ‘eyes’ before cooking