Bearing fruit

Mother's Day should be a stress-free day for the woman in question. Make her breakfast, then let her choose what she wants to do for the rest of the day. For dinner, make these light, easy dishes and serve them to your mother with a pretty bouquet of flowers.

Summer pudding (pictured)

When I lived in San Francisco, I worked for Andrew, an English pastry chef who wanted to introduce traditional British desserts to the American public. They weren't very enthusiastic about things such as sherry trifle, fruitcake or Christmas pudding with brandy sauce, but summer pudding proved very popular.

Summer pudding is so easy to make that it almost doesn't need a recipe, but Andrew gave me some good tips. He said it should include some frozen fruit, because it gives off more liquid than the fresh, and the juice keeps the pudding moist. He also said that for larger puddings, a good guideline on the amount of fruit you'll need is to fill the mould with water, then pour out the water and weigh it - you'll need roughly the same weight of fruit (there will be some leftover, but that can be used to garnish the pudding). Finally, the sugar to fruit ratio should be 1:10, although that can be adjusted according to the sweetness of the fruit.

To the fruit suggested below, you can add or substitute fresh cherries and/or purple plums. Don't use any pale stone fruits because the flesh discolours.

Make this as soon as you can in the morning, because it needs time to chill.

200 grams frozen raspberries