DAVID WOODS: Get ready to serve an ace with this delicious dessert

With Wimbledon Fortnight around the corner, we are busy filling the freezer with white chocolate coated strawberry parfait tennis balls.

Served on a tutti frutti Pimm’s sauce, this dessert is sure to win applause.

Of course, you can keep it simple and just do scoops of parfait drizzled with melted chocolate. Either way, this pretty dessert will win game, set and match at any summer dinner party.

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Strawberry Parfait with Tutti Frutti Pimm’s Sauce

Serves 6

For the sauce:

200ml water

150g sugar

Zest of one lemon

1tsp cornflour mixed to a liquid with a splash of cold water

75g mango puree – available from most good supermarkets

50ml Pimm’s

1 mango

2 kiwis

2 apricots

6 large strawberries

For the strawberry parfait:

225g strawberries

25g caster sugar

150g caster sugar

75ml water

6 egg yolks

150ml whipping cream

100g white chocolate

Method

First, make the parfait by slicing the strawberries, sprinkling with 25g caster sugar and leaving for about 10-20 minutes until the juices start to run from the fruit.

Place in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for one minute. Blitz in a blend and leave to cool.

Put the 150g caster sugar and water into a saucepan and bring to the boil until it reaches 120oC degrees with a sugar thermometer.

Meanwhile, put the egg yolks into a large bowl and whisk until beginning to thicken and turn pale in colour. Continue to whisk while adding the boiling sugar water. Keep whisking until it cools.

In another bowl, whisk the cream until it begins to form soft peaks.

When the egg yolk mix is cold, fold in the strawberry puree and the whipped cream. Place into individual moulds or a freezer-proof container and freezer for at least four hours.

To make the tutti frutti sauce, bring the sugar, water and lemon zest to the boil. Stir in the cornflour to thicken. Leave to cool then stir in the mango puree and the Pimm’s.

Peel and dice the mango, kiwi and apricots and cut them and the strawberries into 5mm cubes. Stir through the cooled sauce.

To serve

Melt the chocolate in a small bowl over a pan of simmering water. Divide the tutti fruit sauce between six glass dishes. Add a scoop or two of the parfait and drizzle over the melted chocolate.

Chef’s tip

If you want to make your own parfait tennis balls, thickly coat half-moon silicon baking moulds with melted white chocolate.

Pop into the freezer for 10 minutes. When frozen, pour in the parfait and freeze again. Pop out of the moulds and slightly the melt the flat sides on a hot plate and stick two half-moons together to make a ball. Return to the freezer.

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