This is a wonderful dessert for summer dinner parties. It’s also great to serve at Christmas, instead of the traditional, rich steamed pudding.

Ingredients

• 2 punnets strawberries, washed and hulled
• 3 punnets raspberries
• 1 punnet blueberries
• 1 cup sugar
• 50ml Cointreau liquor
• 1 cup orange juice, from fresh oranges
• zest of 1 orange
• 1 loaf stale white bread, crusts removed & sliced
• 1/2 tablespoon gelatin (optional)
  

Method

1. Wash and hull the strawberries (tip: hull strawberries after washing, not before, otherwise they will become soft and mushy).
2. Put the sugar, orange juice and orange zest into a saucepan and bring to simmering point. Add the strawberries, blueberries and 2 punnets of raspberries. Stir gently, taking care not to crush the berries.
3. If you are planning to eat the pudding within 24 hours of making it, you will need to add gelatin to the mixture. Place the gelatin in a bowl and stir in 3 tablespoons of cold water. When the gelatin is firm, microwave on high for 10-30 seconds, until it’s hot and liquid. Stir the Cointreau (and gelatin if using) into the berry mixture, then turn off the heat. Strain the berries and reserve the liquid.
4. Puree the 3rd punnet of raspberries with a small amount of the berry liquid.
5. Line a 1 litre pudding bowl with plastic wrap (this makes the pudding much easier to tip out of the bowl once it has set).
6. Dip the slices of bread into the raspberry puree, then use the bread to line the pudding bowl. You may need to cut the bread slices to fit perfectly in the bowl. Half fill the bread-lined bowl with half of the drained fruit, and pour over some of the berry juice.
7. Cover the top of the fruit with slices of bread, dipped in raspberry puree. Add the remaining fruit on top, a final slice of bread and more liquid. Cut bread slices to size to fill in the gaps.
8. Leave the pudding to sit for 10 minutes to let the juices completely absorb into the bread, then cover the surface with plastic wrap. Cut a piece of cardboard (covered with cling wrap) to fit the top of the bowl and weigh it down lightly with a medium size can of food. The pressure encourages the juices to soak into the bread.
9. Leave in the fridge overnight to allow the fruit juices to set.
10. To serve, remove the weight and top layer of plastic and tip onto a serving platter. The pudding should slip free from the plastic lining. Serve with a dollop of thick cream and a dusting of icing sugar.

Copyright CTC Productions 2003