Cherry soup with vanilla ice-cream

Serves 4

Cherry soup with vanilla ice-cream (Jason Lowe)

There's nothing wrong with a delicious chilled cherry soup – served with ice-cream, it makes a really refreshing end to a meal.

500g cherries, stoned
150ml water
150g granulated sugar
4 balls of good-quality vanilla ice-cream or a sorbet or ice-cream of your choice

Bring the water to the boil; stir in the sugar until dissolved, remove from the heat and leave to cool. Reserve about 15-20 cherries (leave them whole if small or halve them if large) and put to one side.

Blend the rest in a liquidiser until smooth and add enough of the sugar syrup to sweeten, then chill in the fridge or even give it a blast in the freezer if you are in a hurry.

Once it's ice cold pour into soup plates, scatter the cherries in and place a ball of ice-cream in the centre.