All kids love jelly. It’s the wobble-factor mainly, but also the bright colours, the cool, slippery mouthfuls, and the sucking sound it makes as your spoon liberates your next bite. When I was a kid (probably, when all of us were kids) jelly only came from packets of dry crystals in little boxes. It was a wondrous thing to watch the pale, lumpy contents become bowls of brilliantly coloured, jewel-like desserts simply with the addition of hot water. There was always a touch of magic to the fruity fragrance that rose with the steam and the transformation of shimmering liquid into wobbling solid. The thought of all of those colour additives makes my adult self cringe, but as a kid, a bowl of cold red jelly with vanilla ice cream was pretty close to the perfect pudding.

When I was about 10 or 11, a craze for jelly crystals swept through the school. We would bring packets of Gregg’s jelly to school, pour a mound of dry crystals onto our palms and slowly lick them clean with the tips of our tongues. We did the same thing with packets of powdered orange juice, ending up jittery from all the sugar, with teeth dyed bright orange, red or purple. I don’t have a good explanation for this, except that I was a kid and kids can be disgusting!

Chardonnay Jelly with fresh raspberries has a finesse that Gregg’s simply can’t match, but the pleasure of each cool, sweet spoonful is very much the same. This is Nigella Lawson’s recipe for Slut-Red Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly, but despite this hilarious name, sluttiness couldn’t be further from my mind. The jelly is tinged a delicate salmon colour, the raspberries float like bobbing apples, and the whole thing tastes floral, fruity and frivolous. I don’t really know what Nigella was thinking, but it’s not the slightest bit bold or trashy. It’s a pudding to be eaten by ladies in the garden on a warm summer day, not mini-skirted wantons with smeared lipstick. I just had to lose the “Slut” and besides, it doesn’t really go with my stories of childhood innocence.

But…I first made this dessert because of a slut, there is that. Our book club had read Louise Doughty’s Apple Tree Yard and met for lunch at the beautiful country property owned by one of our members. Given that the book was set in London, we tried to make dishes with some sort of British influence (Beef Wellington, Eton Mess and so on). My point of reference was the main character who embarks on an exciting affair, so the pudding was a tongue in cheek nod to what I expected to be a  sort of sophisticated Mills & Boon. However, the book turned out to be dark and violent, which was completely at odds with my light, fragrant jelly. I’m thankful that the slutty name attracted my interest in the first place, but despite the wine-soaked berries, this pudding is more virgin than whore.

However you choose to take your Raspberry and Chardonnay Jelly (with a side of titillation or not) it’s a fantastic recipe and a real crowd pleaser. You need to make it ahead or even the day before, so it’s perfect for a party or event when it’s helpful to have pudding sorted and stashed away. Nigella recommends eating it with double cream, but I prefer the slight tang of full-fat Greek yoghurt. Vanilla ice cream would also be fantastic, and a return (of sorts) to the red jelly and ice cream of my childhood.