Summer Pudding

With the abundance of soft fruit in the summer months here is a really easy recipe, and it is even low in fat :)

You need a quantity of fruit, a nice selection is good - but it pretty much works with any combination of:
Strawberries
Blackcurrants
Redcurrants
Blackberries
Loganberries
Blueberries

I like to put something in with a bit of punch like blackcurrants or blackberries, but not too many that it overpowers.

I put all the fruit into a saucepan with some sugar, and a tiny drop of water, I personally think that the quantity of sugar depends how sweet you like things. I heated it up until some of the juices came out, not too much as you want the fruit to keep its shape. I took nearly all of the fruit out of the saucepan and left a bit in the saucepan, I mashed these up and made more sauce.

I then roughly lined a pudding bowl with cling film leaving the edges out, this just ensures it will come out easy.

Then it was a case of using sliced white bread to line the basin. I found a saucer than fitted on top of the basin so that it would squash the contents down. Leaving the slices as complete as possible and just filling in the gaps. The outside of each of the pieces was dunked into the sauce and put back into the basin. Then pile the fruit into the basin so it is full. Then make a sliced bread lid - again dunking the outside in the sauce.  The first time I made this I didn't dunk the outside of the bread into the sauce and I found it didn't seep all the way through.

Then pop the plate or saucer on top so that it squashes it down, and put a tin of something on top to weigh it down.

Leave over night.

The pic is a slice with some clotted cream icecream (not homemade!)

There are loads of recipes on the internet - here is one by Mary Berry it isn't a recipe that needs an exact science - just go with what you fancy, you just don't want too much juice, if you have too much use it to add to serve.