Greatest recipes ever: Elderflower and raspberry jelly

Thomasina Miers picks elderflower and raspberry jelly as one of her greatest recipes ever.

Jo Weinberg made this for a lunch that changed my attitude to jelly in one fell swoop. Before tasting this wonderful, melt-and-wobble-in-the-mouth creation, I thought jelly was all about those blocks of gelatin that we had when we were young. They tasted of nothing good and totally failed to impress me with their shape-holding abilities. These days, I like nothing more than seeing spectacular jelly shapes on my pudding plate, and they’ve improved tremendously in their many incarnations in restaurants up and down the country. This is a sophisticated pudding to give to your friends that will also appeal to the child in them. It slips down a treat, too.

Thomasina Miers

Claire’s elderflower and raspberry jelly

Extract from Joanna Weinberg’s How to Feed your Friends with Relish, published by Bloomsbury

This is perfect in the summer, and beautiful served in a big glass bowl with cream or ice cream, but needs to be made in advance so it can set. The making part is quick and easy and could be done the night before or easily in 15 minutes before work on the morning of serving.

Ingredients
8 sheets leaf gelatin
350ml elderflower cordial
2 punnets raspberries

To serve
Cream or ice cream

Method
Put the kettle on to boil. Soak the gelatin in cold water for a few minutes, then drain. Pour 100ml of boiling water over the gelatin and stir to fully dissolve. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes, then stir in the elderflower cordial and 250ml of cold water. Empty the raspberries into a glass bowl (or jelly mould for more of a flourish) and pour over the liquid.

Cover and put in the fridge to set for at least 4 hours-it works best if left overnight. When the jelly just begins to set, give it a good stir, if you remember, so that the berries are suspended in the jelly rather than floating on the top.

To remove from the mould, if using, dip the bottom briefly into a bowl of hot water, cover with a slightly larger plate and with one confident movement, invert the mould so that the jelly lands neatly onto the plate. Serve the jelly with the cream or ice cream.