The well-loved cookbook challenge #11
Soft fruits, summer puddings and thoughts on pavlovas
For the benefit of new subscribers who are unfamiliar with the well-loved cookbook challenge it’s about revisiting the bespattered books on our shelves, the ones we go back to time after time.
It stems from one of my most popular posts where everyone piled in to share the books they loved most and prompted the idea of cooking a recipe each month from a book that’s 10 years old or older.
It’s a regular free feature on my Substack but it you’d like my weekly food, travel and moneysaving wine tips as well as other exclusive content you can subscribe for as little as £5.
With Wimbledon only 10 days away it seems appropriate that this month’s theme should be summer berries.
Mainly strawberries, raspberries and blueberries but equally mulberries and loganberries if you can get hold of them.
Of course you can - and probably do - enjoy them at their simplest, with pouring cream and a sprinkle of sugar but they deserve to be elevated into old school summer puds.
Top of my list - and nobody seems to make them much these days - is a strawberry pavlova. Pavs show off summer fruits to perfection. I used to make them all the time when I first learnt to cook progressing on to the hazelnut meringue cake from the Cordon Bleu book Desserts and Puddings (1975) which was always a bit of a show-stopper.
There’s a Mary Berry strawberry pavlova here which I made last weekend. I was surprised at her instruction to add the sugar teaspoon by teaspoon which with 225g of sugar would have taken forever so I added it tablespoon by tablespoon which resulted in a more marshmallowy texture than I was looking for.
Prue Leith, on the other hand, in her Cooking for Friends whisks in half the sugar then adds the cornflour, vinegar and the remaining sugar.
Are you in the marshmallowy or crispy camp when it comes to pavs (assuming you still make them)? Which recipe do you use?
(There is an excellent post on Kitchen Projects if you want to do a deep dive into the subject, some of it behind a paywall.)
Eton Mess - smashed up meringue with whipped cream and summer fruits - is even easier especially as you can make it with good shop-bought meringues. Delia - who else? - has a recipe here.
Cream is the great friend of summer berries whether poured over them, whipped to soft peaks or folded into a mousse or ice cream.
I used to make the strawberry ice cream from the Penguin Freezer Cookbook (1973) which knocked spots off any shop bought version. Squishy strawberries make good sorbets too as ellypear demonstrated on a recent Instagram reel.
A New York cheesecake is another good pud to top with strawberries. There’s an appealing one in Sarah Raven’s book Food for Friends and Family (2010) - the Baked Vanilla and Lemon Cheesecake with Marinated Strawberries which you can also find on her website.
It’s a good time of year as well to make a classic English summer pudding which can also include other summer fruits such as gooseberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants. If you grow your own soft fruits it’s a frugal option as the casing is made from day - or couple of day-old bread and can also be made a day ahead. My friend, former chef Stephen Markwick, has a recipe here which I remember fondly from his restaurant Culinaria.
Then there’s baking. Where do you start with baking? I must confess I love a summery blueberry or raspberry muffin for a weekend breakfast. There’s a tempting looking recipe from the Ritz Carlton in the New York Times if you’re a subscriber although some readers have professed they prefer this version. (And one from BBC Good Food if you can’t access either)
Scandinavians tend to use their soft fruits to make fruit compotes and barely cooked fresh-tasting jams. Signe Johansen has a simple ‘Queen’s compote’ a mixture of raspberries and blueberries, in her first book Scandilicious which, again, would be perfect for a weekend brunch.
And finally do make my ‘Strawberry Pimm’s’ - one of my favourite alcohol-free recipes in my book How to Drink without Drinking. It’s utterly delicious
What do you do with summer berries at this time of year? Do share your memories and favourite desserts.
Fi x
If you enjoyed this post and are inspired to make a soft fruit recipe you haven’t made for an age do please give it a ❤️
My go-to has always been the one from the Delicious Desserts book from the M&S (or St Michael, as it says on the cover)
series of soft cover cookbooks, of which I had many and from which I learned how to cook.
Published in the early 1980s, they are still available on eBay and for pennies and well worth a go.
It's a kiwi fruit Pavlova in the book, which is very much of its time but I still use it and I still make it regularly with different toppings and I never tire of it.
I like a crisp outside and a gooey/spongy interior as I like the best of both worlds. Obviously!
I’m a virgin when it comes to making meringue so now that summer has arrived I’m going to make some Eton Mess. You make it all sound so easy. Thanks for a joyful post.