This quick-and-easy summer treat can also be made with raspberries. 

Words and recipe: Aaron Bertelsen

Can there be a better way to mark the end of the summer than with a bowl of blackberry fool? While we grow our own blackberries at Great Dixter, I love foraging for them in the hedgerows too; it gives a great back-to-nature feeling. I like to serve this in individual bowls, with some shortbread on the side – the contrast of tastes and textures is wonderful. You can also make it using raspberries.

Prep: 15 minutes, plus chilling
Cooking: 10 minutes
Serves: 4

INGREDIENTS

375 g/13 oz (about 2 ½ cups) fresh or frozen blackberries, plus a few extra to garnish
juice of 1/2 lemon
100 g/3 ½ oz (½ cup) caster (superfine) sugar
300 ml/10 fl oz (1 ¼ cups) double (heavy) or whipping cream
Shortbread, to serve

METHOD

Put the blackberries and lemon juice into a pan and heat gently, simmering for 10 minutes. Push the mixture through a sieve into a bowl and let cool. Discard the contents left in the sieve. (If the berries yield a great deal more juice than pulp, you are in danger of finishing with soup rather than a reasonably stiff fool. In this case, you might not need to add all the juice to the cream in the next step.)

Whip the cream until fairly thick. Set aside 3 tablespoons of the fruit pulp and juice and fold the remainder into the cream. Pour into a serving bowl or individual bowls and chill.

When ready to eat, add a drizzle of the remaining fruit pulp and juice to each serving, top with a few fresh berries and serve with shortbread.

This recipe was first published in The Great Dixter Cookbook