For the cinnamon cream, pour 250ml of double cream into a nonstick saucepan, drop in a short cinnamon stick broken in half and 5 cloves. Bring to the boil and set aside for the spices and cream to infuse. Heat an overhead (oven) grill. Set the oven shelf about 15cm from the heat. Halve 4 ripe peaches and tease out the stones. Place the fruits, cut side up and nudging one another, on a grill tray or in a shallow roasting dish. In a small bowl mix 4 tbsp of brandy with 3 tbsp of soft brown sugar, then spoon into the hollows and over the rims of the peaches. Pour any remaining mixture into the tray. Let the peaches cook under the hot grill for 10-12 minutes, occasionally removing them from the heat and spooning over or brushing with any caramelising juices and dressing over the fruit. They are done when completely tender – test them with a skewer – and the cut surfaces are starting to caramelise here and there. Bring the cinnamon cream back to the boil, then serve immediately with the hot peaches, removing the spices as you go. Enough for 2 Do make sure your peaches are fully ripe as this is not the recipe for underripe fruit. (Any peaches that refuse to ripen can be good when baked with a little sugar, butter and ground cinnamon.) This recipe will work nicely with apricots or nectarines, too. Instead of a cinnamon pod, use a vanilla pod in your cream. Split the pod in half, scrape out the sticky seeds with the point of a knife and stir them into the cream. There is no need to remove them when you serve the peaches. The peaches will be at their best if you can let their cut edges brown a little. If necessary move the oven shelf a little nearer the heat just for the last few minutes’ cooking, moving them up once they are fully tender.