Summer

This is a luscious -lined pudding dripping with the fresh from the allotment. It can be made with any combination of summer fruits but , raspberries, are the ones most commonly used as they are in season round about the same time. You can use frozen but fresh fruit tastes so much better and keeps its texture. Take very roughly equal amounts of these fruits weighing in total about 1lb and add 4 ounces of into a saucepan. Bring gently to the boil with stirring and make sure the sugar has dissolved - then immediately take off the boil. The aim is to stop the fruit breaking up. Now take a one pint pudding basin, grease well and line it with bread slices that have had their crusts cut off. Stale bread is better as it keeps its shape and helps to absorb the fruit from the juice better. Overlap the slices slightly – the aim is to make a waterproof seal. Reserve a few slices for the top cover. With a slotted spoon ladle the fruit into the basin then pour the juice over the fruit leaving a small amount for the topping when serving. Put the reserved bread slices overlapping on the top. Now we need to compress the whole thing to keep it together! Put a small plate on top of the basin and on to the plate a heavy weight – a tin of soup or baked beans is often enough! Leave this in the fridge overnight. When ready to serve remove the plate and tip the basin over on to a plate and tap it to knock the pudding on to the plate. If all goes well you should have an intact pudding red with the colour of the juice. If not you can still eat it and it will taste just as nice! Pour the reserved juice over the top and if you want you can decorate it with some more whole fruit. Serve with whatever you wish-cream, ice cream, yoghurt, etc To make it a little more exotic you can add some wine or liqueur to the cooked fruit after it has been boiled.

George Gray Plot 32