Raspberry syllabub

Making this syllabub was a daily task during the summer and autumn when I worked in the kitchens of a castle-turned-restaurant. It was an afternoon job, done when all was peaceful. Sometimes we would run out, and I would have to whip one up quickly in the middle of a very busy service. It has remained one of my favourite real fast puddings ever since.

For 2
225g raspberries
4 tbsps caster sugar
1 tbsp framboise or rosewater
225ml double cream
150ml sweet white wine
Put half of the raspberries into a large bowl and crush them gently against the side with a metal spoon. They will bleed a little. Sprinkle with the sugar and the framboise or rosewater. Beat the cream with an electric or hand whisk until it is thick and unctuous and will slowly fall from the spoon. It must not be what you might call 'whipped'. Slowly beat the wine into the cream, which must stand in drifts rather than peaks. Carefully add the cream to the macerating fruit, folding them slowly together with a metal spoon. Throw in the remaining raspberries. Serve in glasses, perhaps with little almond biscuits, like the ones German biscuit manufacturers are so good at.

Grilled apricots with mascarpone

For 2
6 ripe apricots
75g/12 tsps mascarpone cheese
4 tbsps caster sugar
Heat the grill. It needs to be really hot for this. Halve and stone the apricots and put them, hollow side up, in a heatproof dish. Place dollops of mascarpone in the hollows. Sprinkle with half of the sugar and place the dish under the hot grill. Cook for 4 minutes, remove from the heat, sprinkle over the remaining sugar. Grill once more, till the fruit is tender with a crisp crust. Eat warm.

Peaches work in this recipe too, as do nectarines, but I have also had success with dark red plums.

Peaches with raspberry sauce

Pour boiling water over ripe peaches. Leave for 5 minutes, then carefully remove them from the water. Peel away the skins; they should lift off easily. Put a whole peach in the centre of each plate.

Whizz raspberries, fresh or frozen ones, in the blender or food processor with a few drops of Kirsch or some other compatible alcohol, and reduce to a puree. I think you'd better sieve it to remove the seeds. You might add a little lemon juice if you think about it. Pour the purèe around the peaches and serve slightly chilled. The ubiquitous mint leaf so beloved of young chefs would actually serve some purpose here, though it would be better chopped up and scattered over the dish.

You will probably need to eat this with a fork and a spoon, otherwise the peach is likely to go slithering off the plate like a bar of wet soap.

Strawberries with rose petal cream

A straightforward enough recipe from Joyce Molyneux's restaurant, The Carved Angel, at Dartmouth in Devon. The soft rose fragrance is delightful with the ripe fruit. Claret-coloured, deeply perfumed, old-fashioned roses are the ones for this. Make sure that they haven't been sprayed with insecticide. You can either layer the cream and fruit in glasses as they do at the restaurant, or serve it on a plate, surrounding a pile of ripe berries. Either way, this dessert is a doddle.

For 4-6

1 fragrant, dark red rose
150ml single cream
1 tbsp caster sugar lemon juice
150ml double cream
450g strawberries

Separate the rose petals. Whizz them with the single cream, sugar and a dash of lemon juice in a blender. Mix with the double cream and whisk lightly. Hull the strawberries and halve if large. Layer with the rose petal cream in a single bowl or in individual glasses.

Cheat's summer pudding

Proper summer pudding should be weighted and left overnight for the juices from the raspberries, red and blackcurrants to soak through the bread. But the different flavours of the berries have already been married in the cooking pot and anyone can soak bread in purple-black juice. So here is a quick version that has much the same flavour, and the same soggy, fruity bread. The only count it fails on is that it just won't stand up. So? Serve it from the bowl, with cream.

For 4
175g blackcurrants
175g redcurrants
175g raspberries
75g caster sugar
4 slices of white bread

Remove the stalks from the currants. Put the fruit and sugar in a stainless steel saucepan with 3 tablespoons of water. Bring to the boil, then cook gently till the currants burst their skins and form a rich, purple-red syrup. This usually takes 5-7 minutes.

Cut the crusts from the bread and cut it into small triangles, about four from each slice. Place a few of them in the bottom of a 23cm shallow china dish and cover with some of the warm fruit. Make another layer of bread and another of fruit. Continue till all the bread and fruit are used up, finishing with a layer of bread if you can. Spoon the warm juice over the bread, pressing gently down with the back of a spoon until the bread is completely soaked.

Set aside for as much time as you have - 15 minutes should do it. Don't attempt to turn it out of the dish. Spoon into bowls and eat with cream..