The challenge of summer, at least for us amateur pastry chefs, is that it is hard to beat a perfectly ripe piece of fruit. Why bother with anything else? I mean, have you eaten a peach?
This recipe is brilliant because it is so slight. Throw some raspberries into a gratin dish. Spread some sour cream on top. Sprinkle with brown sugar and broil for a couple of minutes until the sugar is melted. The resulting dish is one of the best things you’ll eat all summer. And it took you all of five minutes to make.
No substitutions here. I know some of you crazy people claim you don’t like sour cream, which is as foreign to me as not liking water (truth be told, I have a friend that doesn’t like water— but she is another story entirely). Don’t try this with something other than sour cream. Just eat a bowl of raspberries. Or a Butterfinger. The sour cream is such a perfect foil for the raspberries, it is unreal. And of course, make this only when you have an especially amazing basket of raspberries and some full fat sour cream. Standards, dear readers, standards.
I won’t even give you a recipe. You know what to do. I will give you advice: Get as even a coat of brown sugar as possible, it will help prevent burning. The original recipe even suggests sifting the brown sugar. Once it is under the broiler, watch very carefully because you want the sugar to melt, not burn. It can go from melting to burnt in about 5 seconds. Mine burnt a little this time— still good, but we shouldn’t be eating that. Eat this immediately after removing from oven. There will be a hot top layer followed by cool and creamy sour cream and raspberries. Perfection.
[This recipe is from an awesome cookbook from the 80’s, New America Classics [1] by Jeremiah Tower. Deb first turned me onto the recipe [2] last year. Thanks to both of them.]