Another recipe from Woman&Home Feel Good Food - Spring 2007 magazine. The photography and food styling really caught my eye and there are some wonderful recipe titles such as Banoffee bliss, Feeling peachy and Tropical meltdown. I want to make them all!
For now, I chose the above recipe which I have adapted slightly, purely on the basis I didn't have all the required ingredients. The raspberries were out of my garden and so they took centre stage.
Serves: 6-8
For the syrup: 200ml water, 125g caster sugar, 10 cardamom pods, crushed.
12 to 16 ripe stone fruits, peaches, plums or nectarines.
35g butter, cubed, 6 tablespoons of clear honey.
For the vanilla cream: 200ml double cream, 2 tablespoons caster sugar, 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out, 200ml full-fat yogurt.
1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC, fan 160ºC, 350F/Gas 4. Put all the syrup ingredients into a small saucepan. Bring to the boil then simmer gently for about 15 minutes. Leave the mixture to cool, then strain through a sieve.
2. Halve the fruits and remove the stones. Place on a baking sheet and put a cube of butter on top of each half. Drizzle over the honey. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until they are soft and slightly browned.
3. While the fruit is cooking and the syrup is on the stove, make the vanilla cream. Mix together the cream, caster sugar and vanilla, and beat until thick. Stir in the yogurt and leave the mixture in the fridge until required.
4. When the fruit is ready, remove from the oven to a serving dish. Pour over the syrup and serve warm with the vanilla cream.
My substitutions to the above: I didn't have any double cream and instead used thick Greek yogurt mixed with full-fat yogurt. I couldn't find my vanilla pod and so I used a smidgen of Vanilla Works vanilla paste. Also, I didn't have any plums to cook alongside the peaches and so I decided to use some of my raspberries for decoration. Well, that's what cookings all about sometimes, if you haven't got it improvise!
