Strawberries and clotted cream, ice cream, cream soda floats. Oldies and goodies

Having prepared a sprawling mosaic of edible curiosities, and after much feasting of teeny tiny things. Much was savoured by those both with, and without teeth, respectively. Wrangling them together for a multigenerational ‘tea party’ for 8 to celebrate HM Queens 70th Jubilee which was, with hindsight, an ace move. Some were cold, others the sun was to bright so we lugged the lot onto the kitchen table and set up shop there.

Sadly within 2 days, we are a man down. The sweet, gentle one, the poet, the raconteur, the essence of kindness. His demise belongs to his immediates but this post belongs to my three ‘boys’.

My boys enrich our lives with their magical humour since that hapless Wednesday that we ‘nipped out’ for breakfast. Three friends and their respective families who had been mates and muckers for between 40-60 years. They neither remember or care. Wondrous ‘sui generis‘ rapport unfaltering and utterly addictive.

Butterflied, vilified, glorified, jubilee’d and treasured. Cucumber and mint sandwiches, the size of postage stamps, a proliferation of bite size bouchées, scattered with edible flowers. Rafts of promiscuous pastries all zigzagged along the centre island amidst the haberdashery of red, white and blue (reincarnated from years of celebratory malarky).

Their inertia of charm, dapper attire, wit, wisdom intermingled with far too much Pimms.

Walking frame chariots swishing around to the loos giving the hadron collider a run for its money.

Fettered and dusted with inappropriate school boy banter, expletives, colloquialisms, malapropisms, uproar and guffaws of laughter ensued with the occassional frustration of mid-sentence forgetfulness. Mitigating the few flecks of herbage with pretended and pointless disapproval.

We wrapped up the edible side of the proceedings with strawberry clotted cream ice cream, cream soda floats. All local and not a calorie in sight! (Ohh she lies!) Well, not so many calories in a small amount is there? The quantity typically vague and easily halved and near or near enough still works.

Notably: Few have access to Clotted cream, combining 200ml of double/heavy cream gifts the ‘oomph’ required.

500 ml of finest quality fresh custard, store bought or hand cranked

500ml whipped whipping cream or utterly divine clotted cream

400ml condensed milk

400ml fresh sweet strawberries, hulled and chopped, sweetened to taste, left to gently macerate and soften if needs be. Alternatively defrosted and sweetened, or even canned in syrup works just check for puckering sweetness or blandness depending on your fruit.

Teeny pinch of salt and a little fleck of vanilla simply adds to the charm.

Simply beat the starry alliance of ingredients together, taste test regularly and adjust to your preference. Once frozen in a appropriate lidded container, time to taste again. The title, ingredients and narrative says it all. Strawberries and cream.

The muted palette of a heritage paint chart rather than ‘punch in the face pink’ but the savvy association trumpeted by young and old alike, whilst the combination remains deliciously complex in flavour its hardly complicated to hand crank at home?

A crown jewel to make, for my diamond guys. Then simply served with further bejewel-age of wild or fresh strawberries, meringues, oh and more cream or just slathered into a big crunchy cones.