Raspberry pops

• By Nick Camilleri Preziosi and Alex Mattei

You will need:

One and a quarter cupfuls of raspberries, two-thirds of a cupful of water, two cupfuls of sugar, a tablespoonful of glucose syrup. You will also need a sugar thermometer, two large baking-sheets, 24 lollipop sticks and cellophane.

Lightly grease the baking-sheets. Bring the water to the boil in a heavy saucepan, then stir in the raspberries and remove the pan from the heat. Leave it to cool for about two minutes, then purée the mixture in a blender for just a minute. Strain the purée through a fine-mesh sieve lined with two layers of paper towel (kitchen roll), discarding what is left behind in the sieve and retaining the liquid, which should be about half a cupful.

Prepare a bowl full of ice and cold water. Heat the sugar, glucose syrup and raspberry liquid in a clean saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Bring this to the boil, without stirring, using a pastry-brush dipped in cold water to push down into the liquid any sugar crystals that form on the side of the pan. Skim off any foam that forms on the surface. Carry on boiling, putting the thermometer into the mixture and staying vigilant until it reaches 150C. This is hard-crack stage, which means that the syrup will form hard threads that snap between your fingers. Immediately lift the pan off the flame and dip the bottom into the ice.

Pour a four-centimetre diameter puddle of syrup onto one of the baking-sheets and quickly place a lollipop stick in it. Repeat the process until all the mixture is used up, spacing the lollies four centimetres apart. If the syrup becomes too thick to pour, heat it very gently to loosen it again. Let the lollipops cool down and harden, which takes about 15 minutes, then gently prise them off with a thin metal spatula. You might wish to wrap each one in cellophane. They keep for two weeks.