Ingredients

1 Cantaloupe or Honeydew melon
4-6 oz redcurrants
½ lb raspberries
3-4 tablespoons caster sugar
1 glass sherry
½ egg white (lightly beaten)

 

Method

Select about 6 of the best sprays of redcurrants and keep them on one side for frosting if you wish to use them for decoration.

 

Cut the top off the melon, carefully scoop out the seeds and discard them. Remove the flesh in balls with a vegetable scoop (much the same effect can be obtained with the bowl of a teaspoon; however, the pieces of melon will then be more egg­shaped than like marbles). String the redcurrants and pick over the raspberries. Macer­ate the fruit by placing it in a bowl or plastic container and sprinkling over the sugar and sherry. Cover it tighly and place it in the refrigerator to chill for 1-2 hours. Tie the melon shell in a polythene bag and chill.

 

Take chilled fruit from refriger­ator and pile it back into the melon skin and top with a little crown or wreath of frosted currants or a few reserved rasp­berries. Set the melon on a dessert plate, lined with vine leaves or any decorative leaves. Serve with a selection of friandises or petits fours.

 

Watchpoint: It is most important to cover the melon very carefully when chilling in a refrigerator or you will soon find that its penetrating smell and flavour is absorbed by any other uncovered food, particularly dairy produce and bacon. Meanwhile frost the reserved redcurrants by brushing the strings of currants very sparingly with egg white, rolling them in caster sugar and leaving to dry on a wire cake rack.