Gooseberry fool

On Sunday my Father and I went out to Hopcotts market to pick up an organic chicken and see what was in season.  Much to my delight they had gooseberries.

gooseberries

This is a taste of my childhood, gooseberries were only in season for a short time and my Mother would make gooseberry fool a couple of times each season, it truly was my favourite dessert growing up as I really did not like chocolate that much (that has changed with age I fear) and have never liked really sweet things, and gooseberries like rhubarb is naturally quite tart. In fact you can make rhubarb fool exactly the same way.

I have cheated a little, basically fools are just stewed fruit mixed half and half with whipped cream, but frankly the cream in Canada really does not hold a candle to the cream in England so I decided to use Liberty full fat Mediterranean plain yogurt.

To stew gooseberries you have to top and tail them, take off the hard bits on each end with a small sharp knife.

Gooseberries that have been topped and tailed

Place in a sauce pan with enough water to not quite cover them and add some honey or sugar to taste for this many gooseberries I added about 1/4 of honey.

ready to stew