Sweets for my sweet

Puddings and desserts are something which we have never eaten a lot of. We love quality homemade or Italian ice cream and the desserts I tend to make are for special occasions or when we have friends and family over. Cheesecake is a big hit, and other favourites of mine are pavlovas and small meringues, trifle (usually at Christmas), tarts, cakes and cookies, crumbles and pies. Homely, family style puddings loved by all generations.

It shouldn't surprise you learn than i don't buy puddings. As with so many other things, I can make a good pudding myself so why buy? Slimming World have a new book out, a desserts book which I don't have yet and to be honest the jury is out as to whether I will or won't buy it. Whilst I can see the benefits of diet puds, to a certain extent I've always kind of had an all or nothing approach to puddings since we eat so few. Do it properly or not at all sort of thing.

Until recently.

Growing up we didn't really have puddings except at the weekend. We would often have something on a Sunday after the traditional Sunday dinner - a sponge pudding or similar as a treat to end the weekend. Times have changed, and my kids have a pudding every night, but most nights it's fruit or yoghurt. Ice cream is - as it should be - a treat for the girls, enjoyed and relished certainly no more than once a week, usually much less. We don't have a roast dinner every weekend, in fact it's a rarity for us, but we do eat with the girls round the table every Sunday for definite and Saturdays when we can. We eat a great variety of foods, there are no rules for the Sunday meal cuisine so one week we could be chowing down on a curry, the next pasta, the next a one pot. We haven't really bothered with puddings but recently I've started to feel we should be adding something to that meal in terms of dessert. The problem is, that I'm really mean with my syns where food is concerned, much preferring to enjoy wine at the weekend, condiments and crispy snacks during the week.

I have decided though that we are all missing out. Not just on the food itself, but on my skills. The decision is made though that I will start to indulge yes my children, and yes my lovely, supportive husband but also myself with delectable desserts and pleasurable puds. I'm going to start with a guideline of 5 or 6 syns and that's to include cream or custard too.

I adapted a traditional trifle last week and got it to 5 syns per person. I'll post the recipe after a little more tweaking. In the meantime, I'm going to be starting low with a toffee apple ice cream - hopefully I'll be reporting back good things on Sunday... And hopefully it will look something like the recipe picture below.

Maybe I'll buy that book after all...