Chilled Fruit and Champagne Soup

This is a very impressive course to add to a dinner party. It can be served after an entrée and before the main instead of a sorbet. It is a good idea to practise making this dish before serving it on a special occasion so you will know what fruit, bubbly, jugs and bowls create the best effect. It serves about 3-4 but that depends on the size of the bowls you use.

• Ready In: 12 mins
• Serves: 3-4

Ingredients

• 1 (440 g) can  peaches or 1 (440 g) can apricots
• 1 (44 g) can berries or 1 (44 g) can plums or 1 (44 g) can cherries
• 1 (750 ml) bottle  champagne, but cheap sweet bubbly wine is better or 1 (750 ml) bottle  sparkling grape juice, for a non alcoholic version

Directions

1. You need some plain, flat white soup or pasta bowls for this to work well.
2. Place a 440g can of red fruit (cherries, berries, plums) and a 440g can of orange fruit (peaches, apricots) in the fridge overnight. Process each can separately. Puree the fruit and the juice or syrup in a blender, use enough of the syrup or juice to puree the fruit easily, this will be between about half to all of it. Then pass through a sieve to a 1litre jug. Rinse the blender and sieve before doing the second can of fruit and putting it in a different jug.
3. Cover each jug with plastic wrap and put in the fridge until just before serving.
4. Add the champagne to each jug so they are have increased by half again once you have stirred the fruit and champagne together and the foam has been mixed inches This will only use about half of the bottle.
5. Hold a jug in each hand and pour both fruit mixes into a chilled bowl at the same time from opposite sides of the bowl. They should meet in the middle. Use a toothpick to make a small swirling pattern where the two colours meet.
6. If you have a helper in the kitchen to pour a third jug, you could add a third can of white fruit (apples or pears).
7. This is a very simple dish and once you have made it a couple of times you will feel able to experiment quite happily but remember to use cans of fruit rather than fresh as it saves a lot of hassle cooking the fruit and there is consistency in the amount of fruit in each can.
8. Beware that the combination of fruit and alcohol can affect people more noticeably that they would expect.