10-minute raspberry fool

FOOL: “A person who acts imprudently or unwisely. A silly person.” We are of course exhaustingly familiar with those in this country, especially when we turn our heads in the direction of our revered National Assembly. But that’s not the kind of fool I’m referring to here. Nope, the fool in question is one of the simplest, fastest, most comforting puds you can make.

The earliest reference to fools I could find dates back to the 14th century. But it’s only really in the 16th century that reference to it crops up frequently. Fools are English. As in they invented it. Not as in they are fools. We’ll reserve judgement on the latter until they’ve voted on their Brexit.

The fool you eat essentially just involves pureed fruit (traditionally gooseberries) folded into custard or, in more modern times, into whipped sweetened cream.

A while back Leopard’s Leap asked me to come up with a pudding to pair with their lovely Chardonnay Pinot Noir. Quite a challenge, given that it’s not a sweet wine, and has a crispish acid profile too. So I whipped up a very grown-up roast plum fool, incorporating an entire bottle of their wine along with exotic flavours like cardamom, rosewater and pistachio. You can get the recipe on their site.

But fools don’t need to involve effort. Take this raspberry one. It’s all of ten minutes’ work, and not altogether unhealthy as I substitute most of the cream for lush full cream yoghurt. Like all fools, it needs a crunch. You can serve it with my sinful orange and pistachio shortbread fingers. But if that sounds too much like effort, good ol’ Boudoir biscuits are the answer. It would be foolish not to fool around with this fool. And that is entirely enough appalling wordplay for one day. Enjoy!