desserts

Baked Peaches with Orange Cream

Baked Peaches

There are plentiful juicy peaches and nectarines all over the Algarve at the moment and this rich but summery dessert is a delicious way to use a few of them. Recently enjoyed by our family visitors, it is adapted from one of my favourite easy cookery books – 101 Simple Suppers (“Good Food”)

INGREDIENTS (to serve 2.)

2 x Nectarines or peaches, ideally slightly under-ripe.

Baked Peaches

Baked Peaches

1 x 200g tub Philadelphia cheese

1 Orange

2 Tablespoons sugar

10 ginger biscuits – ginger nuts for those in the UK or Ginger thins, available in Continente for those in Portugal.

25g butter

2 teaspoons clear honey

Preheat oven to 180C.

If the peaches / nectarines are solid enough, halve them and pull the halves away from the stone. If they are too ripe they will squish, so it is easier to cross-cut them and pull off quarters – if makes no difference to the taste of the dessert.

Zest the orange and add the zest to a bowl with the soft cheese and the sugar, beat together to make a creamy orange mixture. Chill the mixture in the fridge.

Crush up the biscuits in a saucepan, leaving a few chunky bits. Add the butter and honey and cook over a low heat until blended together into a gooey mass.

Place the fruit in a baking tray and distribute the biscuit mixture over the top. Then squeeze the juice of the orange over the top. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the biscuit mixture is crisp on the top. Serve with a dollop of the chilled orange cream.

Enjoy!