St. Peter's Pudding

[ruthcooks]

St. Peter's Pudding

Serves 12 as Dessert.

This is one of my very favorite desserts: cool, creamy and sweeter than you'd suppose for a fruit dessert because of the amount of sugar.

It looks very pretty in a cut glass bowl, but I prefer to make it in a rectangular pan or two, cut in squares and serve with whipped cream and a cherry on top. For some reason, the usually nasty maraschino cherries taste pretty good here, and their color is absolutely necessary.

For Thanksgiving and Christmas...

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The fruit:

• 6 oranges cut into supremes, reserve juice (see below)
  
• 1 c seedless green grapes
  
• 1/2 c chopped walnuts (mine are always toasted)
  
• 1/2 c golden raisins
  
• 12 pitted dates, each cut in 4 to 6 pieces
  
• 12 maraschino cherries, cut in thirds or quartered
  

The gelatin:

• 2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
  
• 2 T sugar
  
• 1 c water
  
• 2 c freshly squeezed orange juice (including above reserved orange juice)
  
• 1/2 c fresh lemon juice
  
• 2 c sugar
  

The garnish:

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Whipped cream, barely sweetened, if at all

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Whole maraschino cherries with stems, for garnish

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Prepare fruit and nuts. To make supremes (orange sections with no membranes), first peel the oranges being sure to remove all the white pith and membrane from the outside. Now cut between membranes on both sides of each section. Catch the juices in a bowl as you go, and squeeze membranes into bowl to remove ever more juice. Refrigerate fruit and nuts.

Make gelatin. Combine gelatin and 2T. sugar in a small pan. Stir in water and heat, stirring, over low heat until the gelatin is dissolved. Pour orange juice into large bowl. Add lemon juice, 2 cups orange juice, 2 cups sugar and the warm gelatin mixture. Stir until sugar dissolves. Refrigerate until the consistency of unbeaten egg yolks.

Fold in orange sections, grapes, walnuts, raisins, dates and cut up cherries. Turn into a pretty bowl and refrigerate, covered, at least 12 hours or overnight. Garnish with whole cherries and whipped cream, or as suggested in notes, above.

Keywords: Fruit, Christmas, Dessert

( RG1447 )