Who ate all the ice-cream? This is all I had for lunch!” cries our beleaguered pudding chef, all too often. On warm summer days, he fights off steamy cooks, who seek out bowls of cooling ice-cream to soothe them in the heat of the kitchen.
There is rarely any pity for the pudding cook, just hoots of laughter and an outstretched hand for more. I am as guilty, if not more so, for heading up the ice-cream raids on his section, particularly when there is a delivery of fine fruit at the restaurant. Freshly churned vanilla ice-cream and a punnet of the best raspberries is a formidable pairing – peerless even, and consistently irresistible.
The raspberry has a quality that rises above its rather odd daily availability. Unlike most harvests that defy the seasons and outstay their welcome, offering little more than shape or colour, a raspberry out of season is sort of OK when a little cheer is needed. However, at its allotted time, when the fruit harvest begins its great summer season, the raspberry rises to the fore of the avalanche mightily.
Amid the many puddings that enjoy the company of raspberries, one in particular stands out, surpassing even that bowl of ice-cream: the vanilla pot.
Simply put, it is a vanilla custard, gently baked in a bain-marie until just set, then put aside to cool. Then it’s heaped with a raspberry sauce and served with a bowl of raspberries alongside, a clean, delicate conclusion to lunch or dinner when temperatures are on the rise. Or indeed, any time in between those two meals. I confess to being found in the kitchen all too often with an empty ramekin in one hand and a telltale splash of cream and raspberry pink down my front, rumbled by cooks whose suspicions were aroused by a half-eaten punnet of raspberries sitting upon a bench.
In the words of Messrs Gilbert and Sullivan in HMS Pinafore … “With a bit of burglary” … although I’m not sure those masters of topsy-turvy quite had the contents of a fridge in mind.
Vanilla pots with raspberries and raspberry sauce
Makes 8
600ml milk
1 vanilla pod
30g sugar
7 egg yolks
Fresh raspberries and caster sugar, to serve
For the sauce
250g raspberries
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp icing sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 130C/250F/gas mark ½. Prepare a deep roasting pan and a kettle full of hot water. You will also need 8 little pots, cups or ramekins.
2. Pour the milk into a heavy-based saucepan. Split the vanilla pod and scrape the seeds into the pan. Gently bring the milk to a simmer, then remove from the heat.
3. In a bowl, stir the sugar into the egg yolks. Pour the infused milk into the bowl and stir well. Let the custard sit for 15 minutes or so, then spoon away any foam that may have formed on the surface. Pour the custard into the pots.
4. Put the pots in the roasting tray. Put the tray in the oven. With great care, pour the water from the kettle into a jug, then fill the roasting tray with enough water to reach halfway to two‑thirds of the way up the side of the pots. Bake for 40-50 minutes. There should not be a bubble upon the surface.
5. Carefully remove the entire tray from the oven. Put it down on a wire rack and let the custard pots cool in the water. Once cooled, put the pots on a tray and transfer to the fridge. They do not suffer for sitting, covered, overnight.
6. To make the raspberry sauce, put all the ingredients in a blender and render smooth. Put a sieve over a bowl and pour the sauce into it, pushing through with the back of a spoon to leave the myriad pips behind.
7. To serve, heap the raspberries in a bowl. Have a small bowl of caster sugar alongside. Put each pot on a plate and pour on a spoonful of the raspberry sauce. Leftover sauce can be poured into a jug for people to help themselves.
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