Forever Summer (25 page)

for the cake:

350g soft unsalted butter

350g caster sugar

6 eggs

400g self-raising flour (or plain flour with 3–4 teaspoons baking powder)

50g cornflour

1 teaspoon coconut essence

100g creamed coconut cut from a slab put into a measuring jug and filled up to the 300ml mark with freshly boiled water

for the icing:

1kg icing sugar, sieved

approx. 150ml milk

30g unsalted butter

1 teaspoon coconut essence

6–8 tablespoons desiccated coconut to sprinkle (optional)

33 x 24 x 6cm tin or roasting pan, sides and bottom lined with baking parchment

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.

I make this coconut sponge in the Kitchen Aid mixer, but use whatever method you want. Just cream the butter and sugar first, until pale and light, then beat in one egg at a time, after which dollop in, bit by bit after each egg, the flour mixed with the corn-flour. When all is combined, stir in the coconut essence. While you’ve been doing this the creamed coconut should have melted in the water to form a liquid; give it a quick whisk and beat it into the batter. It will be a fairly runny mix, so be prepared to pour rather than scrape into the lined tin.

Bake for 45 minutes or until the sponge is springy and coming away at the sides. Sit the tin on a wire rack for about 20 minutes and then turn out on to the rack to cool.

Once it’s cool, you can get on with the icing, which is a simple enough affair. Melt all the ingredients except the desiccated coconut in a saucepan over low to medium heat, stirring every now and again with a wooden spoon, and when you have a cohesive, gleaming mixture, all butter melted, pour it over the top of the cake. The icing should be thick enough to cover the top in a smooth white blanket and not dribble off the sides, so add more milk or icing sugar if it’s either too thick or too runny. Sprinkle the desiccated coconut on top of the cake – if you care to – while the icing is still slightly wet. And, for
maximum aesthetic pleasure, leave this slab whole and uncut, iced and almost blindingly, totally mesmerically white, like summer snow, until you actually serve it.

Makes 24 squares.

GOOSEBERRY FOOL

I love the acid tang of gooseberries, all the more desirable for being one of the few remaining seasonal ingredients, against the mouth-cooling, aerated blandness of the cream. On top of which, it’s simple, comforting, elegant: what more do you want from food? As a combination, it’s hard to beat. I don’t think it does to play around with this sort of thing generally, but a tablespoon of elderflower cordial (for those of us who don’t have access to the real thing) added to the cream is a respectful innovation, if indeed it is that; the conjunction of elderflower and gooseberry was a favoured one of the Victorians, who knew a thing or two about puddings (and see the recipe for
gooseberry and elderflower ice cream
).

I haven’t been specific about the amount of sugar used, but that’s because gooseberries tend to differ enormously in their respective sourness or sweetness, and obviously if you are using the elderflower cordial you will already be adding sugar in another guise.

500g gooseberries

60g butter

caster sugar to taste

300ml double or whipping cream

1 tablespoon elderflower cordial (optional)

Top and tail the gooseberries. Melt the butter in a large pan and add the fruit. Cover and turn the heat down to low and let them cook gently for about 5 minutes. When their greenness has softened to mushy yellow, take the pan off the heat and squish the fruit more with a wooden spoon, or give a quick go with a whisk. Don’t mash to a purée, though: you want some texture. Taste and, as I’ve said, add sugar as you think the mashed gooseberries need it: it depends on how young they are, how freshly cooked, and on your palate. Put the fruit in a bowl and leave it to cool.

Whip the cream till softly peaking – you don’t want it too stiff – and then fold in the fruit. If you’re using it, add the elderflower cordial. But mix gently: you want the cream to be punctuated by the sharp fruit, not all one pulpy mass.

I like this better in one bowl rather than in individual glasses, but it’s up to you.

Serves 4–6.

CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY PAVLOVA

You just cannot beat a pav in summer, and in particular this dark beauty. The crisp and chewy chocolate
meringue base, rich in cocoa and beaded nuggets of chopped plain chocolate, provides a sombre, almost purple-brown layer beneath the fat whiteness of the cream and matt, glowering crimson raspberries on top: it is a killer combination.

for the chocolate meringue base:

6 egg whites

300g caster sugar

3 tablespoons cocoa powder, sieved

1 teaspoon balsamic or red wine vinegar

50g dark chocolate, finely chopped

for the topping:

500ml double cream

500g raspberries

2–3 tablespoons coarsely grated dark chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4 and line a baking tray with baking parchment.

Beat the egg whites until satiny peaks form, and then beat in the sugar a spoonful at a time until the meringue is stiff and shiny. Sprinkle over the cocoa and vinegar, and the chopped chocolate. Then gently fold everything until the cocoa is thoroughly mixed in. Mound on to a baking sheet in a fat circle approximately 23cm in diameter, smoothing the sides and top. Place in the oven, then immediately turn the temperature down to 150°C/gas mark 2 and cook for about one to one and a quarter hours. When it’s ready it should look crisp around the edges and on the sides and be dry on top, but when you prod the centre you should feel the promise of squidginess beneath your fingers. Turn off the oven and open the door slightly, and let the chocolate meringue disc cool completely.

When you’re ready to serve, invert on to a big, flat-bottomed plate. Whisk the cream till thick but still soft and pile it on top of the meringue, then scatter over the raspberries. Coarsely grate the chocolate so that you get curls rather than rubble, as you don’t want the raspberries’ luscious colour and form to be obscured, and sprinkle haphazardly over the top, letting some fall, as it will, on the plate’s rim.

Serves 8–10.

PASSIONFRUIT PAVLOVA, AGAIN

I hesitate before reprinting a recipe I’ve published before but after writing about
chocolate pavlova
, I couldn’t resist a quick return to the passion-fruit pavlova in
How To Eat
. It’s just that, in all honesty, I couldn’t contemplate a summer without it. There is something about the mixture between sugary marshmallow-bellied meringue, soft cream and pippy, fragrantly astringent fruit that works too well for me to ignore it now.

Follow the method for
meringue base
, using 4 egg whites, 250g caster sugar, 2 teaspoons cornflour (which you add as you do the cocoa), and a teaspoon of white vinegar along with a few drops of pure vanilla extract. Mound into a 21cm round on the parchment-lined baking sheet and put into the same, 180°C/gas mark 4 oven, turning the heat down immediately to 150°C/gas mark 2, cooking exactly as for the chocolate version. Once cooled, invert likewise, this time covering with 300ml of whipped double cream and the juicy pulp of 10 scooped-out passionfruits; this slightly smaller pav will feed 6–8.

MINT CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

I’ve tried this mousse a number of different ways and I’ve come to the conclusion that it tastes best when made with the best quality mint chocolate. I must own up that this makes it a pretty expensive proposition: Ackerman’s hand-made, plain chocolate mint wafers don’t come cheap. But any good dark mint chocolate works well, as long as the mint is infused in the chocolate rather than a white, creamy filling within it. If you can find really good-quality peppermint oil, though, you’re away: just use a few drops along with the best, plain chocolate you can find. And the mint does make a difference, you know: it turns this from a comfort-food, wintry bistro-pud into a musky, intense hit of smooth summer richness.

Not that I’m claiming any originality here: this is about as traditional a combination as you can get; but somehow, its deep unfashionableness and cool heat make it fresh.

300g mint chocolate

30g soft unsalted butter

6 eggs

2 tablespoons caster sugar

few leaves fresh mint

Break the chocolate into pieces into a bowl, add the butter and put into the microwave, on medium, for 3–4 minutes, though check after 2 to be on the safe side. When the chocolate’s melted set the bowl aside to let it cool a little. Separate the eggs and put the yolks and sugar into one bowl; in another, whisk the egg whites until you have a stiff – but not dry – snow, and set aside.

Now beat the yolks and sugar together then pour, and fold, into the cooled chocolate. When fully combined, add a quarter of the beaten egg whites and vigorously beat to incorporate fully. Now go more gently as you add further dollops of the egg whites and fold them into the chocolate base. When all the whites are folded in, pour into a glass bowl (or four to six individual glasses if you prefer), cover with clingfilm, and chill in the fridge for a good 4 hours, though longer’s fine. And don’t be self-conscious: decorate the centre of the bowl with a few leaves of mint, or place one or two on top of each little mousse in its glass, before serving. You know you want to.

Serves 4–6.

CHILLED CARAMELISED ORANGES WITH GREEK YOGHURT

There is a hint of the days-gone-by sweet trolley about this: it’s not as tricksy to make as the
arance alla principessa
I remember from my childhood, the pudding I always chose on treaty weekend jaunts with my grandparents to the now defunct San Marino in Connaught Street, but rather a rougher-hewn, contemporarily pared down and more huskily aromatic version of the same.

I love these oranges really cold, crispy with caramel and richly dolloped with Greek yoghurt, which means you need to make them enough in advance so that they’ve got time to chill in the fridge. But don’t make them too far in advance: after a day, the sugary carapace will disappear, melting into the fruit’s juices.

6 navel oranges or any small thin-skinned variety

500g caster sugar

250ml water

8 cardamom pods, crushed

Greek yoghurt (approx. 500g)

Using a small sharp knife, cut a thin slice off the top and bottom of the oranges, and then slice off the skin vertically, turning the orange as you go, being careful to keep as much flesh as possible but removing all pith.

Slice each orange into 5mm rounds, trying to reserve as much juice as you can. Just plonk the slices, pouring the juices, into a bowl as you cut them. Or just cut them straight into something like a lasagne dish.

To make the caramel, put the sugar, water and cardamom pods into a large saucepan and swirl (
not
stir) a little to dissolve the sugar. Then slowly bring to the boil without stirring, until the syrup becomes a dark amber colour.

Take the saucepan off the heat and tip in the oranges and any juice that’s collected in the bowl. Quickly coat the orange slices in the caramel and pour on to a flat plate; act with speed otherwise the caramel will set before you can get it out of the saucepan. If you can pick out the cardamom pods without burning your fingers, great, but there’s no need to get too exercised about it: let those eating do a little work as well.

Let the oranges cool, and then put them in the fridge to chill for a little while. Put the Greek yoghurt in a bowl on the table for people to eat it with.

Serves 6–8.