The Thrifty Cookbook: 476 Ways to Eat Well With Leftovers (72 page)

Like trifle, fools are burdened with a name of inconsequentiality and, well, foolishness. Loved since the Elizabethan period, they represent the essence of British summer. Gooseberries, apples and rhubarb are absolute classics but any Stewed Fruit (see
page 235
) will do. Make sure you let the cooked fruit cool completely before mixing it with the cream.

Strawberries and raspberries are also particularly good in fools but they don’t need to be cooked first. Put them in a bowl, scatter over a little caster sugar and a teaspoon of thick, rich balsamic vinegar and allow them to sit for at least an hour. Pour off some juice and reserve it if there seems to be a lot, then mash the fruit roughly with a fork. Sounds odd, I know, but I promise that it won’t taste too vinegary or acidic.

To make a fool, the ratio of softly whipped cream (or thick plain yogurt, if you prefer) to fruit should be about 2:1, but the exact quantities don’t matter. Taste as you go along, adding more cream or fruit until you have the ideal balance of tartness to cream. The fruit should be folded in gently, letting it marble the cream rather than blend entirely into it.

For a complete change, make a fruit ‘snow’ instead of a fool, using stiffly beaten egg white rather than cream or yogurt. Apple snow is a very old dish, originally served with a sprig of rosemary.

Almost any kind of fruit can be baked in a ceramic dish with a little sugar, some gentle spices such as cinnamon, vanilla or star anise, plus a gloop of alcohol if there aren’t kids involved. You’ll get the same intensity of flavour as with stewed fruits, but in these dishes the fruit is designed not to fall apart but to hold its shape.

Apples, pears, peaches and even Christmas gluts of clementines, mandarins or satsumas all bake well, so here’s a general recipe for baking fruit, along with plenty of taste combinations to inspire.

There’s almost nothing more satisfying than baked apples, served with home-made Custard (see
page 33
) or with leftover Christmas brandy butter. You can use either cooking or eating apples, though I prefer the sharpness of cookers.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Butter a baking dish just large enough to hold the apples quite tightly. Core (but don’t peel) some small Bramley apples, then score round the circumference of each apple with a sharp knife to prevent them bursting. Fill up the cavity with raisins or sultanas. Squeeze some runny honey into each hole, or sprinkle on some soft brown sugar. Scatter over the dish a few knobs of butter, a little more brown sugar, plus a dessertspoon of water or cider for each apple. Bake for 40–50 minutes, until the apples are completely tender but not falling apart, with the juices sticky in the bottom of the dish.

Spiced apples
Add a little grating of nutmeg, a cinnamon stick or a pinch of ground cinnamon, or the seeds scraped from a vanilla pod to the filling mixture, to spice and subtly scent the apples. Cloves, if you like them, are also good in moderation.

Dessert apples and Calvados
Halve and core each apple and place in a baking dish, cut-side up. Scatter over brown sugar and dot with butter. Add a dessertspoon of Calvados for each apple. Bake for 40 minutes, basting occasionally.

Pineapple
This is a great way of using up a pineapple that’s past its best, so long as the flesh is not browning. Peel, core and slice it and lay it in a buttered dish. Add a bruised stick of lemongrass, a kaffir lime leaf and a squeeze of lime juice, then scatter sugar over it and bake for 20 minutes or so, until tender. Serve with a little finely chopped mint or basil and some vanilla ice cream.

Christmas satsumas, clementines or similar
First blanch the whole fruit in rapidly boiling water for 30 seconds to remove its bitterness, then drain. Poke a hole through the middle of each one and push in a star anise and a stick of cinnamon. Place in a dish and spoon a tablespoon of Cointreau or whisky over each one and sprinkle a little caster sugar on top. Bake as on the previous page for around 30 minutes, until tender. Serve whole, and use a teaspoon to scoop out the cooked flesh. If you prefer, you can omit the initial blanching and peel the fruit instead.

Peaches, nectarines or apricots
Stone and quarter the fruit and lay it in a buttered dish. Sprinkle a tablespoon of Amaretto over each fruit, add a pinch of ground cinnamon or a vanilla pod (or a teaspoon of good vanilla extract) and bake for about 20 minutes, until tender. Discard the vanilla pod, if using, and serve with crème fraîche and macaroons.

Stone fruit with redcurrant jelly and meringue
Halve the fruit and lay it cut-side up in a buttered dish. Put a teaspoon of redcurrant jelly in the centre of each half and top with meringue mix (see
page 199
). Bake for 20–30 minutes at 150°C/Gas Mark 2, until the meringue is crisp and just colouring.

Pears
Halve and core the fruit and place in a buttered dish. Spoon over a tablespoon of Marsala or sweet sherry, push a couple of cinnamon sticks amongst the fruit and bake for 20 minutes or so, until tender. Serve with a bare scattering of dried lavender or a little chopped fresh thyme.

Plums
Plums always become more tart as they cook, so you will almost certainly need a fair bit of sugar, but don’t overdo it. Halve and stone the plums, place in a buttered dish and scatter soft brown sugar on top, then drizzle with a little Amaretto or port. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the juices start to run and the plums soften. Taste them and add a little more sugar if required. Serve with toasted flaked almonds scattered on top – the slight bitterness of the almonds works wonders and their crunch does heavenly battle with the melting flesh of the fruit.

These three recipes are all vaguely ‘cakey’ and will give you an impressive pudding, a gooey cake for tea or picnics, or muffins galore for office lunches, school packs or general snacking. Banana cake is a law unto itself but the sponge pudding and muffins are, as usual, endlessly adaptable depending on what you need to use up.

Each of these recipes is also easy enough to make with the kids; I know where my eggs come from and have no hesitation about letting them scrape out the mixing bowl, which always seems, to me, one of the best parts of baking
en famille.