Food is a daily pleasure for Stephanie Alexander.
Christmas is particularly special because it coincides with summer and consequently, the availability of her favourite fruits.
"I like looking at, smelling and buying food, particularly vegetables and fruits," Alexander tells SBS Food.
FROM THE EARTH
Carrot fritters
Peaches in syrup
When Alexander was growing up, her family had a white peach tree that grew plentiful peaches for desserts.
"Mum would take beautiful, properly ripe peaches – not hard or crunchy. She would peel them, and the fruit would be sliced into individual glasses and sprinkled with a bit of caster sugar."
The peaches would be left to sit for a few hours until they produced a sugary syrup.
"I have gone on to use that combination of really ripe white peaches with caster sugar for years," she says. "I would have to say as an adult, I'm inclined to top it up with a bit of champagne before serving."
Passionfruit pavlova
Peach shortcake. Source: Stephanie Alexander
A big passionfruit vine on the fence of her family property supplied them with their beloved pavlova topping, not to mention other passionfruit dishes.
"During summer, the fruits would drop profusely," she says. Indeed, they were always thinking of ways to use it up.
"Mum always made a good pavlova. In our family, we were only allowed to use passionfruit on the top. None of these other fruit combinations. Passionfruit was always the star. The combination was just beautifully sweet."
Bountiful berries and balsamic vinegar
Berries and balsamic vinegar are another of Alexander's favourite Christmas ingredients.
"Place a lot of strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries altogether in a shallow bowl. Add no more than a tablespoon of the very best balsamic vinegar and a bit of sugar onto the berries and let it sit, then stir gently."
While the dessert is simple, it requires the finest-quality ingredients.
"Part of the respect that you're giving to the dish is choosing the best ingredients. Don't get the cheap kind of balsamic vinegar because it's just horrible. That's why I get cross when people use it because it's not how it should be. The real stuff is like syrup."
The balsamic vinegar and the caster sugar coat the berries to become glossy and "absolutely delicious and lush".
Fruit salad and a crisp biscuit
Berries often feature in Stephanie Alexander's desserts. Source: Stephanie Alexander
Fruit salad is one of Alexander's favourite desserts to serve during Christmas, in particular, "a beautiful fruit salad where everything is cut in small pieces with a bit of caster sugar."
"It's a winner for all ages!"
She divides her fruit salad into one bowl for kids and another for adults.
"I make a bowl without alcohol for the children, then I would feel quite relaxed adding liqueur to the other bowl."
She likes to serve the fruit salad with a sweet biscuit of some sort, like a sponge finger or wafer.
Ice-cream and fruit mince
For a fancy Christmas dessert that's easy to make, Alexander recommends her mum's Christmas fruit-mince frozen pudding.
She recalls her mum mixing homemade fruit mince into good quality ice-cream. "The fruit mince would be made months in advance, during autumn. My mother was adamant that we make fruit mince with fresh apples, currants and lots of brandy."
Her mum used to soften the ice-cream and mix in the fruit mince with a fork.
Stephanie Alexander's mean Christmas pudding. Source: Stephanie Alexander
"We would then get a small basin so when it was turned out, it would look like a Christmas pudding. Mum would whip cream and put it over the frozen dessert, and the cream would drip down the side and look like snow."
