It's (unofficially) summer now and a lot of us are looking for dessert recipes for the season. I know a lot of people want dishes that don't require much cooking, that are simple to prepare, and that are still elegant and tasty. In an answer to that, The Kitchn has put together a list of nine simple, easy and elegant summer dessert recipes just for you.
My personal favorite recipe from the post is the berries macerated in liquor with whipped cream. The recipe for pears baked with lemon stilton also sounds delicious. All of the desserts presented promise to be quick and use (for the most part) pantry staples. They also all look amazing. Check it out for some great summer dessert ideas.
Over the past few years, "Superfoods" such as select berries and other fruits, have been making headlines due to the high level of nutrients, antioxidants, and assorted other health benefits they reportedly deliver. Though it was difficult to source them from anywhere but health food stores or possibly your local smoothie / juice bar, they are readily becoming more available in mainstream North American products.
Anheuser-Busch has just added Goji, a small, red berry found in a remote area of Tibet, to their existing '180 Energy Drink' line. The berry is believed to increase energy and stimulate rejuvenation, and apparently contains one of the highest antioxidant levels of any fruit recorded. According to AB, "180 Red with Goji" contains carbonated water; sucrose; Goji berry juice; acerola juice; guarana for natural caffeine; vitamins B-6, B-12 and C; and lychee natural flavor.
Late last year, the company also released "180 Blue" which is made from the super-berry Açai, found in the Amazonian jungles of Brazil.
Pairing lemon with other fruits in desserts is a great idea, as the bright, tart flavor of lemon really helps to highlight other flavors. Bea, from la Tartine Gourmande, used this strategy when making her luscious Blackberry Tartlets with Lemon Cream. The tarts are quite easy to make because the elements are made separately and combined before serving. The tart shells are made with pâte brisée and are prebaked, a step that you could easily do a day or in advance if you want to try the tarts during the holidays and need to save time. The lemon cream, which is really like a light and rich lemon-flavored custard, can also be done ahead of time. Before serving, the cream is spooned into the tarts and garnished with fresh berries. It looks like Bea gave some a sprinkle of confectioners' sugar and garnished others with small sprigs of mint.
Although she used blackberries in her tarts, Bea is quick to point out that you should use whatever type of fruit is seasonally available - strawberries, raspberries, etc. We're suspect that the tarts will taste just as good without any fruit topping, too.
First off, does Ray have to be on the cover of every issue, like Oprah? We get it from the name, it's her mag. She's everywhere nowadays, even on the box of Triscuits I bought the other night.
Although cranberries have long been a favorite part of the holiday meal, it seems like craisins have finally come into their own. The sweet, dried cranberries are popular year round, although 80% of sales are still around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Craisins, made by Ocean Spray, are probably the single biggest brand of dried cranberries and account for most of the sales. Their sales have doubled in just the past two years, prompting Ocean Spray to plan the opening of a new factory for processing them. The berries are first dried and, unlike some other brands of dried cranberries, they have the juice removed and it is later injected back into them, creating a slightly sweeter final product that helped the catch on with fans of sweeter raisins and other dried fruits. Craisins go well in salads, baked good and with main dishes, in sauces or on their own, and company executives say that the sales are split evenly between retail consumers and manufacturers of cereals, baked goods and other products. They also attribute their continued popularity to the fact that consumers are constantly seeking out snacks that are at least as portable, but healthier than some of their less good-for-you favorites.
Cranberries are an under-appreciated fruit, but not because people don't enjoy them. In fact, over 90% of all the cranberries harvested each year are used for juice and juice blends, most of which are enjoyed year-round. But fresh cranberries might only be tossed into sauces, quick breads and cakes around the fall holidays, as the very tart flavor and a general lack of familiarity with the fruit stops people from experimenting with them. Cranberry Cooking for All Seasonsis a book that can help with this by providing 125 different recipes for the berry, from Pumpkin Cranberry Bread and Cranberry Applesauce to dishes like Couscous with Dried Cranberries, Pinenuts and Fresh Mint, Tangerine Yams with Cranberries and Sauteed Chicken in Cranberry Balsamic Vinegar Sauce.
In addition to the recipes, the book provides the reader with a comprehensive look at everything you could have wanted to know about cranberries, from their history and the culture associated with the, to information about the growers and where around the world the berries end up.
Cranberries are the perfect fall fruit, at least as far as baked goods go. It is true that pumpkin and apple pies are wonderful, but the vibrant color of cranberries makes them look incredibly festive, not to mention that they add a lot of flavor to desserts, as well. Camille, the French food blogger from Cakes in the City, baked these perfect-looking cranberry upside down cakes. Getting a shot like this is quite a feat because, as most food blogger/photographers will tell you, red foods are usually the most difficult to photograph. To get back to the cake, the reason that this is called an upside down cake is that the berries are placed at the bottom of the pan and topped with the cake batter. Once it has baked, the cake is turned upside down to showcase the gorgeous cranberry layer. Camille added some gingerbread spices to the berries, as well as sugar and butter. The cake base is a light and tender buttermilk cake, which adds a mellow flavor that highlights and tempers the tartness of the berries.
If you can't read her recipe in French, you can try a slightly different variation found here or here.
Capogiro Gelato is a small artisanal gelateria based in Philadelphia. The family-run business works on a very small scale, producing gelato in batches of just 1-3 gallons using almost entirely locally sourced ingredients. Their milk comes from grass-fed, hormone free cows and the produce they use is hand picked, varying from season to season and delivered directly from farms and by growers. This seasonality means that the gelateria has more than 250 different flavors in its repertoire, all produced with the same devotion to high-quality that is applied when sourcing ingredients.
The attention to detail is well worth it. Capogiro Gelato makes some of the best that I can remember tasting.
In the Canadian city of Abbotsford, thieves made off with 20,000 blueberry bushes earlier this week. The bushes were delivered to a farmer who intended to plant them, but when his workers showed up, the bushes were gone.
Now, why the thieves would steal blueberries is a mystery, but it's certainly reasonable to assume that they were thinking of money. Since news of blueberries' health benefits have been in the media, berries are in high demand. The thieves could probably sell the bushes to another farmer. According to Marc Sweeney, the blueberry bushes will "end up on one of several new blueberry farms in the local Fraser Valley."
But the real question in my mind is how the blueberry burglars made off with 20,000 bushes. I don't know how big the bushes were, but 20,000 sure sounds like it would be quite a bit of volume.
The Wall Street Journal (subscription) decided to put several food storage bags to the test to see if their claims that they would keep foods fresher, longer, really were true. They went out and bought fresh strawberries, a fruit notorious for spoiling quickly, and placed them in three different containers: Freshvac Pro containers, SimplySmart PrimeProtector Produce Bags and Ziploc Double Zipper bags.
As a control, some berries were left in their original container. Those molded quickly. The rest of the berries were checked at six and fourteen days in their respective containers. The Freshvac berries started to mold on day six, but the SimplySmart berries were still fresh and tasty at that time. Ziploc'd berries were kept mold-free for the entire 14 days, although the berries had shriveled "unappetizingly" by the end.
So, Ziplocs ($2.79 for 20 bags) are the way to go for short-term storage unless you want to pay 5 times as much for SimplySmart ($4.99 for 10 bags), but the best thing to do is try to eat the berries or other veggies soon after you buy them and not to buy more than you can eat.
Berries, along with chocolate chips, nuts and other mix-ins you might like to add to cakes, breads and muffins, often seem to sink to the bottom of the pan during baking. While you still get to eat the same number of berries per muffin, this usually means that you have one bit of berries and several of plain cake. Berries sink when a batter is not thick enough to support their weight and hold them up during baking. Choosing a recipe that you know has such a batter will produce the best results. One other benefit of using very thick batters is that you will get a much more bakery-like dome to your muffins, since the muffin will be able to support the weight of a high rise better.
But to prevent the berries from sinking into a thinner batter, tossing them with a little bit of flour before stirring them in can help a bit. The flour helps them "grab on" to the rest of the batter and remain in position during baking. Adding a teaspoon of flour will not change the way the recipe works or tastes, so it's a good trick to keep in mind just in case, whether you're working with a thick batter or not.
You can also simply poke the berries into the top of the batter once it is in the pan, instead of stirring them into the batter while it is still in the mixing bowl. This way, even if they sink, they have a much better chance of remaining in the center of the muffin or cake.
Instead of simply topping berries with cream, a fairly common summertime practice, Mae of Rice and Noodles, combined some summertime blueberries with sugar and cream before churning it into some delicious Blueberry Ice Cream. Ok. It wasn't quite as simple as that, but Mae's recipe is easier than most because she actually made the ice cream base in her microwave instead of on the stove top. This means that in addition to being easy, you won't have to heat up your kitchen at all before you are able to cool off with this treat. Of course, you'll still have to be patient while the ice cream base cools and then is churning, but it's worth it.
Over the past few years, "Superfoods" such as select berries and other fruits, have been making headlines due to the high level of nutrients, antioxidants, and assorted other health benefits they reportedly deliver. Though it was difficult to source them from anywhere but health food stores or possibly your local smoothie / juice bar, they are readily becoming more available in mainstream North American products. 
First off, does Ray have to be on the cover of every issue, like Oprah? We get it from the name, it's her mag. She's everywhere nowadays, even on the box of Triscuits I bought the other night. 
Although cranberries have long been a favorite part of the holiday meal, it seems like craisins have finally come into their own. The sweet, dried cranberries are popular year round, although 
Maybe they just really, really like blueberries.
The 
Berries, along with chocolate chips, nuts and other mix-ins you might like to add to cakes, breads and muffins, often seem to sink to the bottom of the pan during baking. While you still get to eat the same number of berries per muffin, this usually means that you have one bit of berries and several of plain cake. Berries sink when a batter is not thick enough to support their weight and hold them up during baking. Choosing a recipe that you know 
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