This is the time of year that warm, sun-ripened fruits are at their peak of flavour. The best idea is to serve them as they are: sweet, lush and dripping with juice. When you have had your fill of single- variety scoffing, start mixing and matching.
You could do worse than combine summer fruits on the basis of colour alone.
Mix the deep, dark colours of cherries, blackberries and blueberries with ripe plums; put the soft blushing pinks of raspberries and watermelon together; combine the sunny colours of ripe peaches, nectarines and fragrant Charentais or canteloupe melons; or frame the cool greens of Galia melons, green grapes and gooseberries on a pretty family heirloom plate.
Such summer bounty hardly needs the application of heat. Eventually, however, even the most artistic among us will want to turn summer fruits into a different art form: that of a hot, juicy, pudding oozing sticky, sweet berry juices. Choose the best berries around (checking the base of the punnet; wily retailers will hide damaged berries on top with new ones) and combine them under a crusty almond crumble. The berries should collapse throughout cooking and go all juicy and dribbly, seeping up through the crumble like hot lava. Don’t eat this straight from the oven, because the berries retain their heat — serve it with a bowl of cooling cream, ice-cream, yoghurt or custard.
Ingredients
Serves 4 to 6
Prep: 15 mins
Cook: 40 mins
250g blackberries
250g raspberries
250g blueberries or pitted cherries
100g caster sugar
2 tbsp orange juice
Crumble topping:
100g plain flour
50g butter
75g Demerera sugar
Pinch of salt
75g ground almonds
1 tbsp Cointreau or water
METHOD
Heat the oven to 200C/Gas 6. Whizz the flour, butter, sugar, salt and almonds in a food processor until sandy. (Alternatively, cut the butter into tiny cubes and rub lightly into the flour with your fingertips. Stir in the sugar, salt and almonds). Lightly mix the liqueur or water through with a fork.
Gently mix the blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and caster sugar and arrange in a buttered one-litre pie or gratin dish. Sprinkle with the orange juice, level off the top, and cover loosely and generously with the crumble topping.
Bake for about 40 minutes until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden. Serve warm, with cream, ice cream, yoghurt or custard.