Baked fruit salad pudding (vrugte-kelkie poeding)

A baked fruit salad pudding combines the comforting richness of a wintery oven-baked pudding with the fresh flavours of fruit salad (better known as fruit cocktail, or "vrugte-kelkie" in South Africa). It is the kind of dish that reminds you that spring is only a couple of month away!

This recipe is Marietjie's variation of this popular pudding, which was published in 1992 in "Uitsoekresepte" by Annette Human.

There are many variations of this favourite recipe, but most of them use far too much sugar for our personal tastes. Marietjie also incorporates the coconut into the batter, instead of using it in the sauce as in the original recipe.

Ingredients

Batter

  • 1 cup (140 gram) self-raising flour (add 1 tablespoon self-raising flour if the batter is too runny)
  • 1 teaspoon (5 ml) baking soda
  • 1/8 teaspoon (pinch) salt
  • ¼ cup coconut
  • 1 jumbo (xtra-large) egg
  • ½ cup (100 gram) white sugar
  • 1 x 410 gram tin of fruit salad (fruit cocktail) in juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) vanilla essence

Caramel sauce

  • 3/4 cup (190ml, which is ½ of a 410 gram tin) Nestlé Ideal Evaporated Milk
  • 1/3 cup (75 gram) sugar
  • 2 tablespoons (25 gram) butter
  • 1/2 teaspoon (2 ml) caramel or vanilla essence

Method

Pudding

  1. Sift the self-raising flour, baking soda and salt together. Add coconut.
  2. Beat egg and sugar together.
  3. Add vanilla essence, tinned fruit, and juice in which the fruit was preserved, to egg and sugar mixture.
  4. Add dry ingredients to the mixture and mix.
  5. Pour the batter into a greased 20 cm (1,25 litre) oven dish.
  6. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in an oven, preheated to 180ºC, while you make the caramel sauce.

Sauce

  1. Bring all the ingredients, except the caramel or vanilla essence, to the boil in a saucepan. Reduce the heat and simmer for 3 to 5 minutes.
  2. Remove sauce from the stove and add caramel or vanilla essence.
  3. Pour the hot sauce over the hot tart as soon as it comes out of the oven.

Serve lukewarm with custard or ice cream.

Notes

For a tropical flavour, add ¼ cup of crushed pineapple and ¼ cup of coconut to the sauce.