Summer Berries

This is the time of year to enjoy fruit especially English soft fruits, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries and blackcurrants if you can get them or grow them yourself. I love to see the first peaches in the shops and apricots, though both these are hard to find in good condition. Eat all these as often as you can while they are plentiful and fresh, them cold, with cream, mashed into yoghurt (cooked first if necessary) added to breakfast on top of cereal or french toast (eggy bread, as it will always be known in our house).

And then think of some puddings to extend the enjoyment: brownies with raspberries stirred in; pavolva, of course, with a wonderful pile of fruits on top of the cream; a light almondy cake sandwiched with cream and mashed or stewed fruit; even a crumble with raspberries and perhaps some rhubarb, or with gooseberries and lots of sugar; a sponge topping on baked apricots.

or try some of these:

Berry Tart

1lb soft fruit with a little sugar to taste
2 eggs
2ox sugar
2oz ground almonds
1tablespoon plain flour

1. Put the fruit and sugar on to a 9" tin the base of which you have lined first with greaseproof paper
2. Beat the eggs and sugar till white and fluffy
3. Fold in the almonds and flour
4. Put over the fruit and turn the tin around to spread it out - but don't worry too much about this

Cook at 15 minutes No 5 or until the top looks firm and light golden
Turn out.

Strawberry Burnt Cream

1. Slice strawberries to fit your chosen dish - a shallow oven proof one. Add a little sugar.
2. Whip double cream and mix with an equal amount of yoghurt.
3. Put a thick layer on top of the fruit.
4. Sprinkle the top with a good even layer of brown sugar - any type but demerara works well and has a good flavour.
5. Put the dish under a very hot grill and watch like a hawk until the sugar bubbles and browns.
6. Chill for a couple of hours maximum.

This can go wrong; if it works perfectly, you get a crisp layer of sugar on top. But even if this doesn't happen, the grill wasn't hot enough for instance or you took your eye off it, there wasn't enough sugar for a good layer, the results are always worth eating with pleasure even so.

Baked Peaches

1. Cut enough peaches into half.
2. Fill a decorative baking dish with the halves.
3. Put a little mixture of sugar and cinnamon into each hollow left by the stones.
4. Put orange juice, whichever type you have, around the halves, a lot or a little.

Then bake them in a medium oven for half an hour or until a knife goes into them easily and the tops are beginning to brown.

This is easy and works even if your peaches are not very ripe - just give them longer and more sugar. They are delicious hot, especially if you have used lots of orange juice which will make a sauce, but can also be served up cold, perhaps lifted onto a fancy plate with only a tiny amount of the juice and pannacotta on the side. They will then pass for a fancy pudding in anyone's estimation.