Rustic Fruit Desserts - Book review

Fruits are my favorite ingredient for desserts. I like to use what is in season, because then it will have its best taste. Most of my fruit desserts are on the rustic site. Everyday cakes and crumbles, a creamy dessert with fruit topping or a compote.

Rustic Fruit Desserts by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson is the perfect book for all those simple but good recipes. There are no fancy cakes or elegant desserts, but there are a lot of those homey comforting ones, those people usually crave the most.

The recipes are divided by season, which I find very useful. There is a little introduction about the different kinds of desserts like crumble, slump and pandowdy. You will find about 70 recipes, of which about a third have a picture. I really like pictures in cookbooks, but since in this case I think it's a good enough amount, because the type of desserts will look pretty similar anyways. At the end is a section with basic pantry recipes, like jam or ice-cream.

I already posted two adapted recipes on my blog. My last post was the Blackberry Nectarine Crumble, which I adapted from the "rhubarb, oat, and pecan crumble" in the book. This is definitely my favorite crumble recipe, and I made it many times with different fruits. Last year I made the Apple Cranberry Pie, adapted from the"apple blackberry pie."

I also really liked the "lemon buttermilk rhubarb bundt cake", which you can see on the next picture. It was very moist and has a great tartness from the rhubarb and buttermilk. You can keep it for a few days.

The next cake,  I would suggest for a more special day. Even rustic, I think it looks rather elegant and is a real treat.  It is a "rhubarb cream cheese pie with fresh strawberries". You have a baked rhubarb cheesecake, which is topped with beautiful strawberries. A perfect combo.

Other recipes I made are:

Cranberry buckle with vanilla crumb: very nice coffee cake, with fresh cranberries

Rhubarb fool: very simple and good recipe, ginger gives the rhubarb an interesting taste

Strawberry and ricotta tart: a nice variation to the classic strawberry tart with pastry cream, filling is a little on the soft side


Rustic Fruit Desserts is a book for your everyday recipes, with a nice touch. It has nice pictures and a pretty look with its thick paper. I used it a lot already, and can really recommend it.

Blackberry Nectarine Crumble

In the last few years we were lucky to know a few places in Vancouver where you can find lots of blackberries. They were always very sweet and there was an abundant amount of them. In no time my basket was full. This year we have our own blackberries in the garden, but I must say the wild ones always taste sweeter, maybe because it seems like a little treasure hunt if you take a walk and find them. Nevertheless our blackberries are still tasty. Perfect in combination with some nectarines.

I made my favorite crumble recipe from the book Rustic Fruit Desserts. I love this crumble recipe, it's very simple and goes very well with all kinds of fruit. I have made it before with rhubarb, rhubarb & strawberry, rhubarb & apricot and peach & apricot. You should try it with your favorite fruit combination.

Now, I have some happy news to share. I won second place with my picture of the red currant cakes in glass jars at this month' DMBLGIT contest! I always admired the awarded pictures and am very honored to be one of them now. Thank you very much for choosing my picture and thank you to CookSister for hosting.

Daring Bakers: Baked Alaska with Blueberry-Ricotta ice-cream

Well, I never thought of putting ice-cream into a hot oven, but this month it was time to try something daring. Yup, it's Daring Bakers' time again. This month challenge was to make a Baked Alaska. A Baked Alaska is a dessert which contains of a cake base, in this case a totally yummy brown butter cake, this is topped with ice cream. Then the whole cake is spread with meringue, which serves as an insulator, when the cake is put in the oven.

For the ice-cream I made a Blueberry-Ricotta ice-cream. We were lucky the other day, when we took a hike to find a huge patch of wild blueberries. There were endless bushes of ripe and juicy berries, and in no time we had filled our basket. Those wild berries have a lot of flavor and made the ice-cream really stand out.

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

Apricot Jam and an Apricot-Almond Sheet Cake

Apricots are now the peak of their season in Europe. I especially like the apricots from France, because they are firm, and yet sweet and juicy, so they are perfect to put on a cake. They are also good for making jams, and I made a batch of apricot-vanilla jam last week. It's one of the most versatile jams for baking. It tastes great as a glaze on fruit tarts, danish pastries and as filling in cakes like a Sacher torte. I will be using my apricot-vanilla jam for glazing for my recipe today, and I recommend you to make some for yourself whenever you find some nice apricots.

Apricots also goes very well with almonds, since they have similar taste profiles. Sometimes apricot kernels are used to make persipan, which is a cheaper alternative to marzipan, which is made from almonds. This cake has both ground almonds in the dough, and slivered almonds on top. There is no need to put it in the fridge; it will keep well for a couple of days in a cool place.

A Berry Lovely Cake for my first Blog Anniversary

Today my little blog is turning one year old. I can't believe how fast the last year passed. It's been very rewarding to share my photographs and baking with all of you. It is always encouraging to read all the nice comments and I really appreciate them.

I made a few updates to the site, I hope you all like it. For the future I hope to post more frequently with more pictures. Now, being back with my family in Germany I have a lot more people to bake for. They are already complaining about their expanding waistlines.

For this special anniversary I made, of course, a berry cake. It has a sponge base, a creamy white chocolate and mascarpone cream and is topped with lots of fresh mixed berries. The prefect summer cake.