I’m about to start shooting for my next book, which is full of sweet things. About two-thirds of the way through writing it, I realised there was something lacking: colour. One of the challenges of photographing dishes such as tahini caramel shortbread, coffee and walnut financiers, and cappuccino cupcakes is that they’re all, essentially, various shades of brown and beige. Delicious, yes, but a bit 1970s furniture to look at on the page.
So I rolled out the red carpet for berries, to brighten up proceedings, and raspberries in particular. Just as I use barberries and pomegranate seeds to shower my savoury cooking in colour, I turned on the tap for this sweet, sharp fruit. Used whole (to garnish a grand pistachio roulade, say) or squished into a knickerbocker glory or, more discreetly, in a jam spread in a dainty puff, raspberries bring the colour I’m after.
Raspberries not only look great (there’s nothing quite like them to get you oodles of Instagram likes), their taste and texture make them a real gem: they’re sweet, yes, but they have an arresting tartness that strawberries, for example, lack. It’s this tartness that makes them so welcome in all sorts of things, from a rich, creamy ricotta tart filling to a citrussy lemon cupcake or the floral sweetness of a stuffed white peach.
This week, I’ve been playing with that last pairing to showcase how well these two fruits work together. About two-thirds of the way through writing this column, however, I realised there was a big something lacking: peach melba, that classic peach-and-raspberry combo. A cooked peach sitting on vanilla ice-cream with a drizzle of raspberry sauce (that’s all there is to it, so no need for a proper recipe); if you’re going trad, serve it in an ice-sculpted swan. Come to think of it, maybe the 1970s vibe isn’t so bad after all.
Five-spice pork belly with peach, raspberry and watercress salad
The pork and the salad both work on their own, but the combination of the two is wonderful. Serves four.
60ml maple syrup
6 garlic cloves, peeled and left whole
200ml red wine
200ml port
1½ tbsp Chinese five-spice
Flaky sea salt
1.5kg pork belly, off the bone, skin on
100ml sunflower oil
For the peach and raspberry salad
1½ tbsp cider vinegar
1 tsp maple syrup
¼ tsp Chinese five-spice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot, peeled and thinly sliced
100g fresh raspberries
3 peaches, halved, stoned and each half cut into 0.5cm-wide wedges
40g watercress
½ small radicchio, leaves separated and cut into 2.5cm-wide slices
In a large bowl, mix the maple syrup, garlic, wine, port and five-spice with a tablespoon salt. Put the pork in the bowl, rub the sauce all over and leave to marinate at room temperature for at least an hour.
Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4. Lift the pork from its marinade and lay it skin side up on a high-sided 20cm x 30cm oven tray. Pour over the marinade from the bowl, seal the tray tightly with foil, and roast for two hours. Lift off the foil, baste the pork and roast uncovered for another hour, until the meat is tender and crisp; during this final hour, check that there’s always a bit of sauce in the bottom of the tray, otherwise the meat may burn; add a little water if the marinade looks like evaporating.
Transfer the pork belly to a board and leave to rest. Tip the juices from the tray into a medium saucepan, bring to a boil and leave to bubble for three to four minutes, until thick and jam-like. Take off the heat.
Using a small knife, carefully tease the skin away from the belly and discard, then cut the meat into eight equal-sized pieces.
Heat the oil in a large, deep pot on a medium-high flame. Once hot, add the pork (you may need to do this in two batches) and fry for four minutes, turning regularly so it browns and crisps all over – take care, because the oil may spit. Add the fried pork to the thick sauce and stir to coat in the sticky juices.
For the salad, mix the vinegar, syrup, five-spice, oil, shallot and three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt, stir in the raspberries and crush slightly with the back of the spoon.
Put the peaches and all the leaves in a salad bowl, pour on the dressing and toss. Serve two pieces of pork per portion with the salad alongside.
Raspberry- and almond-stuffed peach with amaretto sabayon
I’m always of the opinion that more is more when it comes to alcohol in a pudding, but you can get by with just the sauternes here, if the amaretto seems extravagant. Serves eight.
4 large ripe peaches, halved and stoned
150g raspberries, roughly crushed with the back of a fork
70g plain flour
40g unsalted butter, fridge-cold and cut into 2cm dice
30g demerara sugar
30g caster sugar
60g blanched almonds, roughly chopped
1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
For the sabayon
6 egg yolks
90g caster sugar
120ml sauternes (or another sweet dessert wine)
3 tbsp amaretto
50g cream cheese, at room temperature
Heat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Use a teaspoon to scoop out a 4cm-wide and 2-3cm-deep hole in each peach half, where the stone was. Spoon half the raspberries into the cavities; keep the rest for serving.
Put the flour, butter and sugars in a medium bowl, then rub in the butter with your fingers to form a rough crumb. Stir in the almonds and nutmeg, then spoon a little mound of crumble mix on top of the raspberries in each peach half. Lay the peaches raspberry side up on an oven tray lined with greaseproof paper and bake for 25 minutes, until the crumble is golden-brown, the peaches are soft and the juices are bubbling. Set aside to cool slightly: you want to serve these warm, not hot.
Make the sabayon just before serving. Fill a medium saucepan with enough water to come a third of the way up the sides. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat to medium, then place a heatproof bowl on top of the saucepan: it needs to fit snugly inside the pan without the base touching the hot water. Put the egg yolks, sugar, sauternes and amaretto in the bowl, and whisk constantly over the bubbling water for about eight minutes, until thick, frothy, shiny and hot. Take the sabayon off the heat, add half the cream cheese and whisk to combine. Add the remaining cheese and whisk again, until smooth.
Serve one warm peach half per portion with a generous dollop of sabayon spooned over, alongside or underneath the fruit, and top with a couple of crushed raspberries..
Hazelnut, peach and raspberry cake
I like to use blanched hazelnuts to keep the cake light in colour, but you can use unskinned nuts, if you like: if so, the cake will be darker and the hazelnut flavour more intense. This cake is at its best when slightly warm; that said, it will keep for a day, but not much longer. Serves 10.
2 tsp sunflower oil
2 large peaches, stoned and cut into 1.5cm-wide wedges
200g raspberries
320g caster sugar
125g blanched hazelnuts
200g soft unsalted butter
3 large eggs, beaten
125g plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
⅛ tsp salt
Heat the oven to 170C/335F/gas mark 3. Line a round, 24cm spring-form cake tin with baking paper and brush with the oil.
Put the peaches in a bowl with 150g raspberries and a tablespoon of sugar, mix and leave to steep.
Put the hazelnuts in a food processor and blitz for about a minute – you want them only roughly ground.
Beat the remaining sugar and the butter in an electric mixer until smooth and well combined, then add the eggs one by one, fully incorporating each one before adding the next. Add the ground hazelnuts, flour, baking powder and salt, then mix until smooth.
Pour the batter into the cake tin. Arrange the peach slices and raspberries randomly on top and bake for 70 to 80 minutes; after 30 minutes, cover the cake with foil to prevent it from taking on too much colour. Remove the cake from the oven, leave to cool slightly, then release from the tin. Arrange the remaining raspberries in the centre of the top of the cake and serve.
