Breakfast
● Make a raspberry cranachan. Lightly toast rolled oats and sprinkle with sugar. Mix with some lightly whipped cream (or apple juice), a little whisky and lightly crushed raspberries. Best served chilled.

● Make a compote. Place a single type of berry or a mix in a saucepan with just enough sugar to sweeten and either a little water or orange juice and gently stew until the fruit is just bursting. Add a few of your favourite flavourings to the mix such as vanilla, cardamom, star anise, orange, lemon or lime zest (add the juice for a fresh flavour at the end of cooking). Adding a teaspoon of rosewater or orange-blossom water adds a heady perfume to the fruit. Serve the compote warm or cold over cereal, pancakes, French toast or waffles, or try it with the following ricotta fritters.

● For ricotta fritters combine 300g ricotta (Zany Zeus is perfect), 1 beaten egg, vanilla extract, finely grated zest of 1 lemon, 1 tablespoon caster sugar and 2 tablespoons flour and fry small spoonfuls in clarified butter. This can also do double duty as a dessert.

Mid-morning
● Add 1-2 cups blueberries, raspberries or sliced strawberries into muffin or scone mixes.

● I often throw overripe bananas in the freezer to use for a smoothie. Frozen bananas thicken the smoothie beautifully, without the need to add ice. Place 1-2 bananas in a blender with 1-2 handfuls of any berries and yoghurt or milk.

Lunch or Light Dinner
● Add raspberries to a salad of rocket, roasted beetroot and goat’s cheese. Use raspberry vinegar and a nut
oil to dress the leaves. Serve with crusty bread.

● After panfrying a piece of beef or venison, deglaze the pan with a light, fruity red wine, redcurrant jelly and a little stock or water. Add redcurrants or blackberries to the pan and cook until the berries burst. Finish with a knob of butter and spoon over the meat.

● Dress a carpaccio of beef or venison with shaved fennel, blueberries and lemon vinaigrette.

Desserts
● One of the simplest and easiest desserts to make is a berry fool. Crush strawberries or raspberries with whipped cream and pile into a glass. Or, for a lighter dessert, use thick yoghurt or crème fraîche in place of or for part of the cream. One of my favourite fools is made with lightly poached gooseberries with a drizzle of elderflower syrup.

● Fresh strawberries are de rigueur for an Eton mess, but raspberries are also delicious. Combine lightly crushed meringues with whipped cream and the mashed berries.

● To make a raspberry bombe, combine the Eton mess ingredients, add a little brandy and swirl through some raspberry coulis (purée raspberries with sugar syrup and strain through a fine sieve to remove the seeds). Spoon into a plastic wrap-lined tin (loaf or round) and freeze. Serve frozen with extra coulis and whipped cream.

● Summer pudding is fabulous when tart berries with high pectin are around (they help to set the pudding). Currants, red, black and white, are delicious when combined with raspberries and blackberries. Place in a pan with sugar and water and bring to the boil until the fruit are about to burst. Strain gently and reserve the juice. Dip thinly sliced crustless white bread or brioche into the juices and use to line a bowl. Reserve enough bread for the top. Add the fruit to the bowl and top with the remaining bread and juices. Cover well, weigh down and refrigerate for at least 1 day before turning out on a plate to serve.

● Combine berries with poached apples or stone fruit and use as a filling for a pie or crostata, or top the fruit with a shortcake topping, sponge, crumble or cobbler dough.

● Use a compote of berries to top a rice pudding or as a filling for crêpes with crème fraîche or mascarpone.

● Place stewed berries in the base of crème brûlée custard or use to top the custard in place of the caramel (for
the dessert pictured, see our website).

● Use up any leftover panettone or brioche from Christmas to make bread and butter pudding with the addition of raspberries or blackberries.

● Raspberries, strawberries and blackberries all make excellent sorbets. Combine with sugar syrup and lemon or lime juice to taste in a blender, pass through a sieve and freeze, stirring occasionally. Blackcurrants are also delicious, but work best when cooked in the syrup first. ginny grant

Pictured above - Baked vanilla custard with blueberry compote