Creamy Baked Pineapple (Portugal)
Every week I post a sweet or savoury, healthy recipe to welcome in the weekend.
This Healthy & Sweet Recipe
Inspired by the warm weather and an upcoming trip to Portugal, I tweaked this tropical Portuguese dessert to be healthier and easier to make. In the original recipe, Abacaxi com Merengue, you're making cream as AS WELL AS merengue - seemingly simple until you give it a go! I scrapped the merengue for the purpose of time, patience and sanity but if you're an artful baker, by all means show it off!
Ingredients
- 1 small to medium sized, ripe pineapple
- 3 egg yolks, separated from whites
- 1 cup smooth coconut milk - no lumps
- 4 tablespoons coconut flour (you may need to add more for thicker cream)
- 3 teaspoons organic coconut palm sugar
- 1 teaspoon of melted honey
- 1 teaspoon arrowroot powder (or corn starch)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- cacao powder for topping
Steps
First prepare the cream. Start by heating coconut milk in a saucepan over medium high heat. As the milk warms up, separately blend egg yolks and sugar together in a glass bowl. Pour this into the milk. Next, add honey, arrowroot powder and coconut flour into saucepan. Stir mixture continually until it comes to a boil. The liquid should have a creamy texture. Stir in vanilla extract and pour into a bowl to cool.
On to your pineapple. This is a very messy part so ideally make sure you have a cooking tray available or another surface that can easily catch stray pineapple pieces as they go flying! Use a sharp knife to carve out pineapple cubes and a spoon to scoop them out. Be careful to not damage the shell as we'll use that later to make this extra pretty.
Next, cover your pineapple cubes in the cream you prepared earlier. You want to really drench them for maximum flavor!
Following the dousing, transfer pineapple cubes back into the gutted pineapple shell and place in a baking tray (if you hadn't already.) Pop the pineapple in the oven for 5 minutes at 180C (with fan or 200C without/ 400F) to bake it.
Once you're satisfied (you can do longer for a warmer treat,) remove and serve with cacao powder. Add fresh berries for extra oomph.
