Rachel Khoo: cherry-picked

They have been a long time coming, but cherries have finally arrived from the south. I rarely go to the effort of tampering with this precious fruit, preferring to eat them straight from the bag, challenging myself not to scoff them all on the journey back from the market. But today I cycled, so I made it back with a full sack and opted for a chilled soup to showcase my favourite fruit of the summer.

Chilled cherry soup with coconut cream clouds

Serves 4

370g fresh cherries

150g sugar

1 tsp ground black pepper

Juice of ½ lemon

1 can full-fat coconut milk, cold

2-3 tbsp caster sugar

150ml double cream

1 vanilla pod, split, seeds discarded

To serve:

100g fresh cherries, pitted and halved

2 tbsp crushed freeze-dried cherries or 2 tbsp toasted desiccated coconut

Halve the cherries and remove the pips. Put the sugar and black pepper in a pan with 150ml water. Bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. Add the cherries and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Leave to cool.

Place the mixture in a blender and blitz for 2 minutes. Strain the juice through a sieve into a clean bowl. Add the lemon juice and taste to check if it requires more. Leave to cool, then place in the freezer 15 minutes before serving.

Extract the layer of thick cream from the can of coconut milk. Place in a blender and blend with 2 tbsp caster sugar until smooth. Whip the double cream into soft peaks and add to the coconut cream (if a little water separates during the whizzing process, discard). Add the coconut milk to the double cream with the vanilla pod and whip again. Check if it requires another tablespoon of sugar.

When ready to serve, ladle a little cherry soup into the base of each bowl and divide the fresh cherry halves between the bowls. Dollop the cream in the centre of each and garnish with the freeze-dried cherries or toasted coconut.