Plate of Fruit & Raspberry Sauce

INGREDIENTS:
* ab. 400 g raspberries
* 2 – 5 tablespoons icing sugar
* 3 kiwi fruits
* 1 small fresh pineapple
* 1 small melon
For non-weight watchers:
*2 dl whipping cream + 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar (optional)

Raspberry Sauce

METHOD:
1. Pass the raspberries through a fine-meshed sieve.
2. Discard the seeds.
3. Add enough icing sugar to make a syrupy and not too sweet sauce.

THE PLATE:
1. Prepare the fruits as usual, wash and peel.
2. Cut melon into wedges and slice kiwi fruit.
3. Cut pineapple into slices, then into smaller chunks.
4. Divide sauce among six serving plates.
5. Make a decorative fruit arrangement in the raspberry sauce,
6. Top with a vanilla scented dollop of whipped cream (optional).

A quick warning! This dessert can´t be done in advance because the rasberry sauce has a tendency to discolour the fruit. It doesn´t look nice.

I grow raspberries in my garden. They also grow wild where I live, and in many other polar regions down through temperate climates of North America, Asia and Europe. I find the flavor of wild raspberry much more sweet and aromatic than the garden raspberry.

Last summer was too hot and too dry. I was not able to find any wild raspberries at all. This summer has been both rainy and warm. In my surroundings there are large forests where I can find delicious and healthy raspberries.

My father used to say that raspberries ripen in the darkness of August. This may not be the truth everywhere. Harvest time depends on other things.

In the beginning of July every year, there is a Raspberry Festival held in a very tiny village in France. This small village (Concèze) celebrates raspberry, and holds the official world record for baking the biggest ever raspberry tart. Over 6.000 visitors are provided with treats made from raspberry (la framboise). I have never visited France. There´s the festival I wouldn´t mind visiting!

Raspberries are versatile. Other than in cakes, pies, in preserves, as a salad ingredient, and in boozy cocktails, they also work very well in a dessert combined with fruit.