Gooseberry Crumble

Gooseberries have a short temper and a shorter season. Six weeks, sometimes less, between the tail end of June and the middle of July, and then they're gone until next year. If you blink you'll miss them. I don't, because I grow a scraggly bush at the bottom of the garden that produces more than I can reasonably use, and because the market has them in crates during those weeks for anyone paying attention.

This is a pudding for a warm evening that's gone slightly cool after supper, when the light is still in the kitchen and you want something honest to end the day on. The gooseberries are sharp, almost shockingly so, and they need the sugar and the crumble to round them off. But you don't want them tame. The whole point of a gooseberry crumble is that first spoonful where the fruit wakes you up and the oats and butter talk you back down again. Sweet and sharp, soft and crunchy, hot and cold from the cream. We're only making dinner, but this is the sort of dinner that writes itself into the notebook.

Elderflower and gooseberry is one of those pairings that feels like it was always going to happen. They're in season at the same time, they grow in the same hedgerows, and a spoonful of elderflower cordial stirred through the fruit gives the pudding a quiet perfume that tastes like the end of June. If you haven't got any, leave it out. The gooseberries will carry the day on their own.

Don't be tempted to make this out of season. Frozen gooseberries are a reasonable thing, but they'll give you a wetter, sadder pudding than the real ones. And the fruit the supermarkets sometimes carry in March, pale and tight and shipped from somewhere that isn't telling, isn't worth the trouble. Wait. Come July, you'll be glad you did.