Gooseberry Fool

Back in may I made fool, mentioning the superior nature of gooseberry over most other fools.

Somebody somewhere heard me & sent a punnet of organic gooseberries in the fruit & veg box. Gooseberries are often seen as time consuming to work with, but with a good sieve & a food processor you can skip all the topping & tailing. Simply wash them and then drop into a pan with either a splash of water & a spoonful of sugar or if you are feeling a bit more adventurous use either elderflower cordial or elderflower liqueur. After 20-25, it should all have gone a bit mushy. Pour that into your food processor & give it a whiz or three, then pour the resulting purée through a sieve, this will take out the seeds & the tops & tails of the berries leaving you with a bowl of smooth green loveliness. Unless you've got very sweet  (red/pink usually) gooseberries, you are going to have to add some sugar. Now is the ideal time whilst the purée is warm. Just remember that the cream will add some sweetness, so add perhaps half a spoonful less than you think you'll need. Stir so all the sugar is dissolved & blended and then put it into the fridge to cool.

Once the gooseberry mixture has cooled whip up some cream (about 1/2 a pint /300ml will do) to the soft peak stage. Then fold in the purée  in stages. I like to leave the last lot roughly swirled, so you get ribbons of gooseberry through the fool. Then dish up into glasses/bowls/ramekins remembering that its quite a rich dish and pop them back into the fridge to chill before serving.