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Hi Forumites,
As markets blossom with luscious summer fruits (and as I prepare for the weekend's parties) I find myself facing a perennial quandary: how to best showcase summer fruit in dessert. Somehow I cannot overcome the mental hurdle that baking (crisps, crostatas, etc) is for winter fruits, and that summer fruit is just glorious on its own -- and then I end up just wanting to serve some variation on unadorned Berries or Peaches (or both) with Rum-Vanilla Whipped Cream. Pretty unimaginative. Care to share your favorites?

Fools (sweetened fruit in whipped cream) are great summer fruit desserts. I love the rhubarb fool in the New Basics cookbook (Rosso and Lukins) probably because it calls for ginger, which I think goes nicely with the rhubarb.

I'll often leave the fruit raw/macerated and just bake up a quick biscuit or shortbread type thing to top it with. It's a really easy way to adorn unadorned fruit, making it seem fancier and "nicer", but still preserving the integrity of the beautiful fresh fruit.

I was thinking of whipping some leftover cream with nutmeg just before it gets stiff, then topping sliced peaches with it. But I love peaches so much I don't know if I want to cover them up!

another nice addition to fresh or macerated summer fruit is zabiglione. it's kind of a pain to make, but fun, if you're in the mood to play around with something, and it's wonderful over stone fruits or berries.

I'm a big fan of upside down cakes, especially made with stone fruits like plums or cherries. (I like to riff on this recipe from Gourmet a few years back.) It's my go-to picnic dessert.

MAG just posted a birthday-cake recipe on The Local Beet; an almond dacquoise with strawberry mousse. Yes, it's baking, but the strawberries remain in their raw state as a puree. Sounds delish.

I often do a riff on key lime pie: I make a cooked custard pie using 1 can of condensed milk and 3 egg yolks and a shot of vanilla in a regular piecrust. After it's cooked and cooled, I top with fresh berries and either glaze with apricot jelly or dust with confectioner's sugar, depending on what I think it needs. You could do this as tartlets as well - or you could do the standard berry tart, which has a creme patisserie base and fruit on top.

Eton Mess http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/eton ... 95,RC.html

Summer Terrine http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/a-te ... 62,RC.html

I find both pretty much foolproof, the terrine is nice too because its so low cal unless you dress it up with cream.

One of my summer fruit standbys is a lemon curd and berry parfait. It's so simple, but really light and refreshing. Obviously you can buy lemon curd but it's so much better if you make it yourself and lighten it with whipped cream, then layer in individual dishes with cubed pound cake (or angel's food cake for those who want to make it a bit healthier) and berries. Also, if you want to avoid baking altogether there's always sorbet (I made some great peach sorbets last summer) and my new baking favorite: the hand pie.

My favorite fruit salad recipe is something I made up one day when I was a teenager. You basically slice up all the fruit you have on hand -- the original called for:

Strawberries
Blueberries
Pineapple
grapes (yes...sliced in half)
Melon

I don't generally use bananas or apples because I don't like how they end up in the final stage but peaches or nectarines would be a nice addition as would kiwi.

Then you take raspberries and blackberries -- but the raspberries are key -- and toss them over top of the sliced fruit. Then you take pineapple juice and pour it over all the fruit. The pineapple juice reacts with the raspberries and creates a truly lovely little sauce for the fruit. Usually I use 1-2 of the little cans of pineapple juice to do a whole serving bowl of fruit. Stir it up a bit and cover and let it sit in the fridge for awhile before serving. We called this concoction "Perky Bouquet".

Don't ask me why -- we just did.

Anyhow -- when I was an adult I would vary this by adding grand marnier or another orange liqueur along with the pineapple juice -- and I've also added champagne.

You can serve it alone -- you can serve it on ice cream or yogurt and it keeps for a couple of days (if you can keep it that long!) and gets lovely and more macerated as you let it "mogitate" in the fridge.

Anyhow -- there are days in the summer when this is all i want to eat all day long. Especially if the melon is sweet and cool.

Shannon

This thread discusses one of my favorite summer desserts -- English summer pudding. Scan down for Josephine's full directions on how to make one.

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=8828&p=79806&hilit=english+summer+pudding#p79806

A great way to use up miscellaneous leftover berries is this simple, everyday cake, [Berry] Buttermilk Cake from Smitten Kitchen. It's a cinch to put together, is not terribly sweet and showcases the berries beautifully. And because it's not too sweet, it's great for breakfast; kind of like a moist coffee cake. In fact, I made one today with blueberries and blackberries.

I was thinking about summer pudding, myself, but I've always been a bit daunted by it - it seems like, with all those powerhouse ingredients, the flavor would be overpowering (though with the strong endorsements in the thread, I really should try before I judge) So, I found this recipe (incidentally gluten-free, but I plan to use ordinary bread) for individual puddinglets that I think I might adapt for training wheels...

The mini-puddings look adorable.

I do assure you that a good summer pudding is no more overpowering than a bowl of fruit with cream. It just looks more dramatic, bringing out the bright, pink pudding (which doesn't show the fruit as the minis do), and then cutting into it and having everyone gasp when they see the fruit packed inside. Ladle over the cream, and it's heaven. As for berries, my favorite combination is strawberries, blueberries (not very English, but I love blueberries), and raspberries. It actually needs a bit less sugar, too, as these are sweeter than currants.

Rhubarb and strawberry crisp with buttermilk ice cream: