Jamie Olivers Baked Fruit Food

ROASTED STONE FRUIT

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.
• Halve the oranges and squeeze all the juice into a large roasting dish with the balsamic. Halve the vanilla pod lengthways and scrape out the seeds, then add both pod and seeds to the dish.
• Grate in the strawberries, mix together, and pop into the oven to warm through while you prep your crumble and fruit.
• For the crumble, tear the stones out of the dates and place the flesh in a food processor with the oats, coconut flakes, 1 tablespoon of oil and 130ml of water, then blitz into a crumble.
• Pour into a roasting tray or dish (30cm x 40cm) and spread out into an even layer. Wash all the fruit, then halve or quarter, removing the stones as you go.
• Pull the dish of warm, delicious juices out of the oven and gently stir in all the fruit. Return to the top shelf of the oven, place the crumble on the shelf underneath, and cook for 45 minutes, or until the fruit is soft and sticky and the crumble is nicely golden.
• Stir the crumble occasionally as it cooks to break it up and give it a nice even colour.
• Serve up however many portions you want while it's all warm, adding 1 tablespoon of yoghurt to each one.
• Once cool, decant the rest of the crumble portions into an airtight jar to enjoy in the days that follow, and pop the fruit into the fridge, where it will keep happily for up to 5 days.

FRUIT COBBLER

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C/gas 5). Put the fruit into a pan with the sugar and the balsamic vinegar. Put the pan over the heat, and cook gently, until the juices begin to run from the berries. Pour into an ovenproof dish.
• Meanwhile make the topping. Rub the cold butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Add the sugar and salt, stir well, and then add the buttermilk to form a loose, scone-type mixture. Roll balls of the dough and place randomly over the hot fruit. Sprinkle with a little sugar, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes until golden brown. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

VANILLA BAKED FRUIT

Steps:

• Simply mix the sugar into the mascarpone.
• This cream has a lighter texture than mascarpone cream. It goes well with almost any dessert.
• Whip the cream and sugar until the mixture stays in soft peaks. Don't over-whip.
• Don't buy vanilla essence and don't buy ready-made vanilla sugar. It's so expensive, you don't get much and you can so easily make a much better version yourself. You should use vanilla pods. Although the pods are quite expensive, the recipe works out much cheaper in the long run because of the amount you can make.
• VANILLA SUGAR: Don't buy vanilla pods that are dry and hard -- buy them fat, sticky and squashy. What we want to do is infuse the natural vanilla flavor of the vanilla pods into the sugar. It is perfectly fine, and obviously quicker, just to pop the pods in an airtight container with the sugar; you will achieve a more subtle flavor. I really like this recipe, though, because you get the maximum flavor from the pods.
• You need a food processor for this one. Put your vanilla pods in the mixer, blitz, scrape the sides and blitz again. Add all the sugar and blitz for about 2 minutes. Sieve the mixture into a bowl, return any lumps to the food processor and blitz again. (You may want to repeat this process if you want it really fine). The result will be a slightly ashy-colored mixture -- now that's real vanilla sugar!
• Store it in an airtight container. It should last you for ages.

MY FAVOURITE FRUIT SALAD

Steps:

• Remove the vanilla seeds from the pod and put seeds and pod into a small pan. Add the water, sugar and reserved grapefruit juice. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer to make a syrup. Put in the refrigerator until thoroughly chilled.
• Toss the prepared fruit in the chilled syrup. Spoon onto plates and pour over the chilled Prosecco. Serve with creme fraiche.

JAMIE OLIVER'S BAKED FRUIT

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425*F Using a food processor, combine vanilla pod and sugar.
• Wash fruit.
• Halve and remove pits from plums, nectarines, peaches and apricots, if using, and peel bananas and cut into chunks.
• Place fruit in a single layer on baking sheet (s).
• Sprinkle with about 1/2 cup of vanilla sugar.
• (Store leftover vanilla sugar in an airtight container.) Bake fruit 10-15 minutes, or until fruit is soft but still holds its shape.
• Serves 8-10.