“This is a very traditional English pudding. Fruit rippled with whipped cream – simple and very nice. You just need cream, beautiful seasonal fruit and something to cut through it – if you don’t have time to make the butter bread, which needs to be prepared the night before, just use some nice biscuits.”
– Lillie O’Brien, jam-maker, London
Note:
You need to get the bread going the day before, and be prepared for a longish proving period both days. Also, you need an electric mixer to make this recipe, ideally with a dough hook attachment (if you don’t have a dough hook, then a normal paddle will do).
Makes one loaf
INGREDIENTS
Fool:
250ml thickened cream
1 tbsp icing sugar
200g raspberries
Butter bread:
440g strong white bread flour
20g honey
30g sugar
20g water
12g fresh yeast
A pinch of salt
6 eggs + an extra yolk
360g unsalted butter, soft
METHOD
Prepare the butter bread the night before. Into a large bowl, add the flour, honey, sugar and water. Then add the yeast and the salt to different parts of the bowl so that they don’t touch until the last moment (prolonged contact with salt will damage the yeast). Using an electric mixer, slowly combine the mixture with the dough hook attachment, then start adding the eggs one by one. Once incorporated, keep mixing until the mixture comes away from the side of the bowl. Slowly add the soft butter until you have a smooth glossy dough. Cover the bowl with a oven cloth and leave the dough to prove in a warm area until it doubles in size – this will take a couple of hours.
Once it has doubled in size, knock it back (by punching your fist into the dough so it deflates to its original size) and place in the fridge overnight.
The next day, place the dough in a tin – I use a classic loaf tin. Leave to prove in the tin until the dough doubles in size again – this will take another couple of hours. Preheat your oven to 180C. Brush the top of the bread with egg yolk and bake for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile prepare the raspberry fool. In a large bowl, add the icing sugar to the cream and lightly whip it. Ripple the fresh raspberries through the cream (you could break them up a little bit first, but it’s quite nice to get big chunks of fruit in your fool).
Serve with the warm bread and some jam on the side.
