All-American desserts steal spotlight

By Jackie Burrell

McClatchy Newspapers

Equinoxes and solstices aside, the last weekend of May marked the start of summer party season. Flags will flutter for the Fourth of July, and families will dust off the grill and break out the cotton tablecloths for a summer’s worth of picnics and celebrations.

The trick, of course, is making those events memorable and delicious, without making them labor-intensive as well.

And a spectacular dessert that showcases summer’s bounty leaves a gorgeous, lasting impression.

So we turned to a trio of cookbook authors — notable chefs and food writers whose books are zooming up bestseller lists — for suggestions on how to make a special, all-American dessert that’s party-perfect, but has all the ease of a summer breeze.

The answers were sublime: raspberry and blueberry tarts, warm cornmeal shortcakes with strawberries, and chocolate cupcakes with a cherry on top — Bing, not maraschino.

In short, the answer begins with beautiful fruit.

“There’s no reason to get a really fussy dessert in summer, when the fruit is practically dessert itself,” says Janet Fletcher, a Chez Panisse alum and James Beard Award-winning writer. Fletcher’s most recent book, “Eating Local: The Cookbook Inspired by America’s Farmers” (Andrews McMeel, 304 pp, $35), is a love letter to the nation’s small, organic farms — and it brims with dessert ideas.

“I love fruit desserts, so I look to the berries and the peaches and the stone fruits of summer,” Fletcher says. “One of the simplest things you can make — it’s a great party dessert because you can make it ahead — is a Summer Fruit Macedonia. It’s basically a fruit salad.”

Fletcher soaks nectarines, plums, berries and cherries in a wine syrup — 11/2 cups each wine and water, and a 1/2 cup sugar, cooked to a syrupy consistency.

“I make it hours ahead, and it just gets better because the fruit gives up its juices. I add a little Sambuca or a little kirsch and serve it in a beautiful wine glass with a cookie,” she says.

Use the best, most perfectly ripe fruit, says Jennie Schacht, an Oakland, Calif., food writer whose latest book, “Farmers Market Desserts” (Chronicle Books, 208 pp, $24.95), features autumnal pear cobblers and berry-filled dishes for spring.

“Farmers markets are perfect for that. The fruit’s so good, it can speak for itself,” she says. “One of my favorite Fourth of July desserts is a rhubarb, blueberry and cream parfait. Parfaits are really easy to make. You make all the components ahead.”

Schacht tucks a crunchy oatmeal topping between layers of fresh blueberries, sweet cream and fresh raspberries or poached rhubarb, then serves the confection in tall parfait glasses. Swap yogurt for the cream, and it makes a great breakfast treat.

“And everyone loves a cupcake,” she adds. Her favorite is a chocolate-cherry version, filled with kirsch-soaked fresh cherries and adorned with a rosy Bing — no maraschinos allowed.

Cobblers, pies and galettes make lovely summer desserts too. A simple tart — like the one that adorns the cover of Deborah Madison’s new “Seasonal Fruit Desserts from Orchard, Farm and Market” (Broadway Books, 278 pp, $32.50) — filled with crimson raspberries and glossy blueberries — adds patriotic hues to any summer gathering.

Madison was the founding chef at San Francisco’s Greens, but she got her feet wet — or rather, her hands floury — at Chez Panisse, where Lindsey Shere was her “pastry mentor.”

“I was originally going to call this book ‘Desserts for the Pastry-Impaired,’” Madison says, her laughter ringing across the phone lines from her New Mexico home. “If someone shows me a picture of some incredibly constructed pyramid of chocolate layers? Oh my God, that’s for someone else to do. I’m a cook.”

So Madison takes a cook’s approach to dessert. Fresh, seasonal fruit is the star, and the pastry merely a buttery backdrop. So there’s no puff pastry fussiness and no creme patissiere to distract from the glory of what she calls “Lindsey’s Austere Berry Tart.” Instead, Madison’s tart pans are lined with a forgiving, buttery pastry dough that can be rolled out and eased into a pan, or gently kneaded and patted into place.

“It’s not going to go weird on you,” she promises.

Fill the tart with berries, then pop it back into the oven to release the fruit’s perfume.

“It really can be that simple,” says Madison. “The real message is get out of the supermarket and look for fruit that really has flavor. It’s got to have perfume. You want it to be sensational. You want to be swept off your feet.”