Summer Pudding

A dream of a pudding when everything is just right - soft fruit running with juice, bread just stale and dry enough to soak it up. It must be proper bread - sliced white goes soggy and disintegrates. In my Dorset pauper days I stuck rigorously to free, found, hedgerow blackberries, picked at the juicy height of early autumn. But of course any soft fruit works as well, or better - raspberries, black and red currants, blueberries. The perfect summer pudding is evenly purple with juice,