Jackie Bruchez - Decadent Fruit Desserts: Fresh and Inspiring Treats to Excite Your Senses

FRESHandINSPIRING TREATStoEXCITE YOUR SENSES

JACKIE BRUCHEZ, CREATORofTHE SEASIDE BAKER

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TO MY HUSBAND, KIDS AND GRANDMA. I LOVE YOU ALL!

Fruit. Its a food group. Its a lunchbox standard. Easily accessible, no matter where you are in the world. Its readily found in most corner markets, big-box grocery warehouses, farm stands and backyards and patios. Fruit is so ubiquitous that it is often underestimated for its versatility and intense flavor, not to mention its medicinal benefits. Although I have a deep appreciation for fruits in their naked, unsweetened, glorious natural state, I have discovered that fruits shift beautifully into unexpected culinary fare. Fruits transform. Thats the idea behind this book. Transforming fruit, be it apples or oranges or more exotic varieties like dragon fruit, into a decadent, sophisticated, blow-your-mind dessert is the revelation I want to share with you.

Im Jackie, creator of the food blog The Seaside Baker. In addition to my passion for cooking and baking, my family and I love to muck around in our tiny backyard organic farm. Its our skinny slice of heaven that sits atop a bluff, about a mile from the Pacific Ocean. The peek-a-boo ocean view from the roof is lovely, even through the power lines. We have a small flock of spoiled, entitled chickens that think our home is just an extension of their coop. Theyve taken free-range to a whole new level. We had the good fortune of picking a home with over a dozen mature fruit trees. The property is peppered with lemon, orange, fig, pink guava, nectarine, peach, loquat and plum trees. There is a lot of work involved with growing your own food, even on this somewhat small scale. We love it. We really do.

We also visit just about every pick-your-own fruit orchard on the West Coast, and my little ones clean off the trees with the accuracy of agricultural turbine harvesting machines. I always seem to find myself with more fruit than we can possibly eat. My husband often jokes when I come home with too much fruit that we will soon be eating a curd of some sort. Because, after all the pies and cakes are made, there is always more fruit to turn into a delectable fruit curd.

No matter the season, California always has an abundance of beautiful fruit to be enjoyed. Like a kid in a candy store, I often get giddy at the sight of the edible rainbow in front of me at roadside fruit stands and farmers markets. All that gorgeous deliciousness at its peak freshness! I purchase enough to feed an army. But all that produce will ripen faster than we can eat it, and I was raised with the idiom, waste not, want not.

Which is reason #322 why I created this cookbook. After years of cooking and baking with fresh produce, I find that adding fresh fruit to a recipe creates a glorious and delicious dessert. It adds color, freshness and, of course, sun-kissed sweetness.

This book is an homage to my life. There are tropical-infused recipes that feature fruits and flavors of Hawaii, where I spent a good part of my childhood. Italian flavors and combinations also are abundant in the book, as this is what I grew up eating at my grandparents big Sunday dinners. Finally, there are beaucoup French-inspired recipes that have helped manage to keep my husband around for the past fifteen-plus years. They say the way to anothers heart is through their stomach, and I can definitely attest to that!

To me, baking is a process that should be enjoyed. When I set out to create a multistep recipe, I turn the music up and make my kitchen my art studio. Many of my recipes in this book will have a few steps. Fear not. Im here to walk you through all the steps. For those of you who are more adept in the kitchen, you wont be boredI promise! So pick a recipe, get set and lets have some fruitin tootin fun.

Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.

Anthony Bourdain

I am far from simple in everyday life. Ive been known to say, Ill become a minimalist when Elton John does. But when it comes to desserts, sometimes simplicity is key. While I love a good fruit-enhanced cake, I also love a warm and bubbly fruit cobbler. In-season fruits are the best for these sorts of desserts because of their sun-ripened sweetness. This chapter includes recipes from simple . You will find that all the recipes take the tree-ripened fruit to a whole new level and turn them into an elegant dessert perfect for any occasion.

Growing up, this is the one dessert that I remember my mom made on a regular basis. It wasnt until well into my adulthood that I began making it for my own family. With a little adapting and some brown sugar butter crumble, these baked apples quickly became a family favorite. Now, it is the first recipe we make after coming home from our annual day of apple picking.

MAKES: 4 apples

CIDER APPLES

2 cups (480 ml) apple cider

2 tbsp (30 g) unsalted butter

3 tbsp (40 g) light brown sugar

tsp salt

CRUMBLE FILLING

cup (60 g) all-purpose flour

cup (20 g) rolled oats

cup (70 g) light brown sugar

cup (50 g) granulated sugar

tsp salt

tsp ground cinnamon

4 tbsp (60 g) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes

4 firm cooking apples, such as Granny Smith, Honeycrisp or Braeburn

tbsp (8 ml) lemon juice

Vanilla ice cream, for serving

Preheat the oven to 350F (177C).

To make the cider syrup, pour the cider into a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring it to a simmer, and continue to cook until the cider has reduced to half and is somewhat syrupy, approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Stir in the butter, brown sugar and salt. Pour the syrup into the bottom of an 8 x 8inch (20 x 20cm) or 6-cup (1.4-L) baking dish.

To make the crumble filling, in a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt and cinnamon. Using your fingers or a pastry cutter, cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until pea-sized clumps form. Set it aside.