Seasonal Fruit Desserts: From Orchard, Farm, and Market

by Deborah Madison
Clarkson Potter, 288 pp., $32.50

I love fruit desserts. And I really love Deborah Madison’s new cookbook. It outlines her straightforward approach to making sweets, which as those of you who are fans of Madison’s other cookbooks will recognize, mirrors her earthy approach to cooking in general. She is not a fussy cook. She is not a demanding architect of the plate. Rather, Madison is about fresh ingredients prepared in a simple manner that brings out their flavors naturally.

Seasonal Fruit Desserts applies the same philosophy Madison introduced in The Greens Cookbook and The Savory Way to delicious desserts made with fresh fruit, nuts, and honey. She covers the basics from fruit cobblers and upside-down cakes to parfaits, compotes, fruit sauces, and fruit tarts. Her recipes are unintimidating and easy to follow; as Madison notes in the introduction, they don’t require the exactitude of the pastry chef. Desserts such as the soufflé pancake with caramelized apples and aged cheddar or the peach and raspberry parfait layered with sabayon require only fresh fruits and a few simple operations to produce glowing results. The collected recipes are ones that all cooks should have in their arsenals.

Madison is exacting when it comes to sourcing fresh ingredients. She devotes considerable space on the pages of Seasonal Fruit Desserts to nudge the reader toward procuring fruits from local markets and farm stands. Desserts such as the peach-and-frangipane tart or the austere raspberry tart – a sweet crust filled with raspberries – rely largely on the freshness of the fruits themselves. Follow Madison’s prescriptions when it comes to using fruit in season, and you cannot go wrong.

This article appears in November 26 • 2010.

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Rachel Feit is an archaeologist by trade who worked her way through college in kitchens in Chicago and Austin before discovering that dishing up words was more satisfying that dishing up meals. She has been writing about food and restaurants for The Austin Chronicle for more than a decade, but still loves to cook.