Cherry Ricotta Toast

It's stone fruit summer – that means it's time for plums, peaches, cherries, apricots, and more!

One of my favourite ways to use stone fruit is to macerate it and put it on toast with ricotta cheese. It's a filling and light meal – breakfast or dessert? That's up to you.

Ingredients:

• 4 pieces of olive oil toast (recipe on YouTube)

• 1 cup ricotta (make your own! recipe on YouTube)

• 1 tbsp honey

• 1 orange, zest and juice

• 10-15 basil leaves, ripped into tiny pieces

• 2 tbsp sugar

• 2 cups whole pitted cherries (or plums, or peaches, or apricots, or nectarines)

• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

• Pinch of salt

Method:

Put the ricotta and honey into a small bowl. Mix together. Set aside.

Put the stone fruit, orange zest, orange juice, basil, sugar, and vanilla into a medium bowl. Toss and let sit for 15 minutes to soften the fruit and get the flavours to know each other.

In the meantime, make your olive oil toast. Add 2 tbsp olive oil to a hot pan, set in a slice of sourdough bread, and cook for 1–2 minutes per side until golden brown. Transfer to a rack (to prevent the evils of toast sweat). Continue until you've made all the toast.

Assemble by spreading 4 tbsp ricotta onto each piece of toast. Transfer to a plate then top with a generous amount of stone fruit. Allow the juices to soak into the toast.

It's exceptional.

Make ahead:

If you want to serve this for a bougie brunch, you can make the honey/ricotta and macerate the stone fruit the day before and leave it in the fridge – then you only need to toast and assemble in the morning!