Earthy Meals Deserve a Perky Finish
After a risotto with truffles for a main course you will need something fresh, white and red for dessert. As a designer, rather than a professional chef, I tend to think in colours as well as flavours, and truffles although utterly delicious are, well, earthy - black, brown or off-white in colour - and quite ugly but of course with that amazingly powerful and unique scent. Raspberries are the perfect antidote; gorgeous to look at, a designer’s dream of fresh, plump juiciness and bright red colour - and they smell marvelous too. In the early autumn the English raspberries from Kent that have been so prolific during the summer months are replaced in the markets by Scottish raspberries, slightly smaller but with an intense flavour. I buy them whenever I see them! And then I start to plan the menu, as there are so many simple ways to have raspberries for dessert. A purée, or coulis, needs no sort of extra thickenings and can be poured over home made vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt to make a mini ‘Disaster on the Alps’.
Whole raspberries can be folded into 2 stiffly beaten egg whites, lightly mixed with a small tub of bio-yogurt, 1/4 pint of thick cream and a little sugar to make ‘Raspberry Clouds’. Almost as easy is ‘Crème aux Framboise’ which blends the raspberry coulis with 1/2 pint of thick double cream, one stiffly beaten egg white and two tablespoons of caster sugar to create a mound of Barbara Cartland pink. But with my raspberries I decided to make Les Crèmets because these tiny heart-shaped cheeses that I serve with the raspberries are so romantic and cute.
In its extreme simplicity this sweet is one of the most delicious in all French cookery; although in fact cookery is the wrong term to use, since there is no cooking involved - just a lot of fresh cream and fresh organic egg whites. And as I often had it as a child in Kent I tend to think of it as a very English, very old fashioned, dessert!
Theo Hodges
Theo Hodges was born in Kent. After a degree in Graphic Design she joined J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency as an Art Director working on accounts such as Rowntrees, Kraft and The Butter Council. While she was at University in Perugia, Italy she started collecting recipes from friends and family. In 1980 she set up her own design agency: Theo Hodges Design Consultants. For many years when they were young Theo, her sister and six cousins used to spend vacations at her Grandmother’s Victorian vicarage in Kent. ‘The thing about remembering childhood’ she says, is ‘there’s a whole lot of oblivion, and then out of it something floats up, quite sharp and clear. Many of the meals I can still see vividly and various recipes of mine were originally from Granny’s kitchen. ‘The kitchen garden was stuffed with raspberries, huge red dessert gooseberries, strawberries, runner beans, peas and much more with the hens in a shed at the back. But Granny only ate chicken breast and runner beans, followed by raspberries and Jersey cream - and therefore so did we. When raspberries were out of season, and in those days the season was much shorter, Granny made Victoria sponge cakes sandwiched with cream and home-made raspberry jam. On this limited but delicious diet we all thrived’. Theo’s mother was an excellent cook as well, and had been taught by the house- keeper at their house in Mougins, South of France. And once rationing was withdrawn in England in 1952 and good, fresh ingredients became available again, she amassed an enormous number of recipes which has formed the basis for Theo’s collection of family desserts.