Strawberries will be here for summer months and then they will disappear

They’re so sweet and succulent they don’t really need any adornment. A glug of cream and you have a near perfect dessert. This classic pairing is the essence of summer. Strawberries will be here for the summer months and will then disappear for another year.

We’ve come to expect all fruit and vegetables to be available all year round and the supermarkets have fulfilled that expectation. Strawberries will be in the shops in November and will look like what we have now. That’s where the similarity ends. Strawberries grown in a greenhouse in Holland or Spain in winter will have all the taste appeal of biting into a soggy dishcloth. Something that bothers me is when restaurants use these strawberries and extra nonsensical mint leaves to garnish hot puddings in the bleak mid winter. They should save their precious food costs and have a photo of said travesty on the side of the dessert – it’ll save money and taste the same. So enjoy them while they’re here and look forward to them arriving next year. In the meantime you’d be better using frozen strawberries – at least they have taste.

A cheesecake is a great, creamy vehicle to show off strawberries. The recipe here is for one I’ve been making since college but has the addition of mascarpone (which wasn’t available here back in the mists of time). It’s got some lemon added that brings out the sweetness of the berries. Before serving the strawberries on top of the cheesecake toss them in a little sugar – it adds a nice glaze to the berries if you leave it for 10 minutes. Simple and delicious.

One of my favourite cookbooks is Florence Irwin’s “The Cookin Woman”. Florence travelled around Northern Ireland in the 1930’s showing people how to cook and also wrote a column in the Northern Whig newspaper. Every now and then I crack open her book and today it opened at a recipe for strawberry curd pudding. The curd is made with milk, buttermilk and rennet that’s left to curdle then hung in muslin over a bowl to drain away the whey and finally cream added. There’s a lot of work in this recipe but I’ve taken the key ingredients and swapped out the rennet for gelatine. It’s essentially a set buttermilk cream. Florence also suggests adding a little sugar to the strawberries before adding to the curd pudding. Old recipes are a real joy to explore but I’ve found nothing really changes that much – take basic, good ingredients and treat them with respect. This pudding would be lovely on its own but I’ve added some shortcake for a bit of crunch. The shortcake has the addition of some crushed cardamom seeds and that buttery spice works very well with the strawberries. I’m off for another bowl – August will come round quickly.