Mike: These are a childhood favourite of mine and I have managed to add them to Joe and Carla’s list of favourite puddings. Just pineapple rings, digestive biscuits and melted chocolate. They’re called ‘workies’, why I don’t fully know but it has something to do with my father eating them at work – either as a pudding served up at his canteen at Tate & Lyle (in the days when everyone stopped for a big cooked lunch in the middle of the day) or as a dessert at a works ‘do’ he and my mother attended.
There are a few important things to remember when making workies. Firstly, you must drain the pineapple on kitchen paper and pat each circle dry before placing it on the digestive biscuit. It is amazing what a perfect fit a pineapple ring and a digestive biscuit are – they were made for each other, edges matching edges giving you a smooth plane to smother in melted chocolate. Secondly, you need to make sure that the melted chocolate completely fills the hole in the centre of the pineapple ring.
Then spread the chocolate over the top and finally around the sides so you completely seal in the pineapple. This can be a bit of a messy business but if you form a tripod with your fingers and thumb, you can balance the workie nicely on top.
There is then the question of how to eat them. Some people bite away in a random fashion while others nibble systematically at the sides until they are left with a last satisfying bite of ‘workies’ centre – pure chocolate and digestive. Workies will keep in a tin for a couple of days, but with grown men and children around it’s more likely the plate will be emptied on the day they’re made.
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