Fruit Desserts | Gourmandistan

Short Sour Cho Chweet Cherry Season

May 20, 2012 by Steve

About five minutes after his favorite fruit farmer, Sandi Deutsch, made a facebook post about picking sour cherries, Steve called and demanded her entire haul. The next afternoon we faced an all-to-perishable pile of crimson, scarlet and neon red cherries, perhaps six pounds in total, that needed to be dealt with quickly. We also knew it would likely be our only chance at local cherries in 2012. Tiny sour cherries, also known as “pie cherries,” have a very brief appearance […]

Categories: Cherries, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Vegetarian

The solution: Strawberry Ice Cream

May 15, 2012 by Steve

The problem? A large quantity of soggy, slightly discolored strawberries. We were so excited at the arrival of fresh fruit season that we ordered up several gallons. Unfortunately, between our order and the pickup, there were heavy rains. Rain makes mushy berries, and hard rain gives them bruises. The berries were so beat up even Steve didn’t want to eat them out of hand—and Steve has (in Michelle’s eyes, at the very least) an amazingly high tolerance for damaged fruit. […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Strawberries, Vegetarian

Putting the “me” in “Lemon Tart”

April 24, 2012 by Steve

Michelle has made a myriad of pies—from savory meat to sweet, sweet berry. A cavalcade of crusts, fillings, flutes and folds have traveled through her hands; hundreds upon hundreds of recipes have filtered through her head. So when the mood strikes Michelle for something sweet (and that mood strikes very, very often whether she acts on it or not), she can take ingredients on hand and pop out a pie. This little lemon tart is one such synthesis. It made […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Lemon, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Piña colada in pie form

April 16, 2012 by Steve

Gourmandistanis are not really fond of either piña coladas or getting caught in the rain. (We’re also really not that fond of the late 1970s, a period we both endured when this horrible song and its dismal disco brethren were about the only things available on local radio.) But we do rather like pie, and this incredibly easy coconut-pineapple confection from François Payard is indeed a tasty piece of tart. We made one recently to use up some more of our […]

Categories: Coconut, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Pies & Tarts, Pineapple, Recipes, Vegetarian

Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Carbon Copy

February 17, 2012 by Michelle

We could say we shared ideas with Alice Medrich at one of her famed Bay Area Cocolat stores back in the Seventies or Eighties. We would be lying. We could say we “tweaked” this recipe for Apricot Lemon Bars from Medrich’s latest cookbook, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies. We could tell you how our tweak made it so much better. Again, this would be an untruth. We did substitute walnuts for hazelnuts—only because, while Steve usually has enough nuts […]

Categories: Apricots, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Lemon, Recipes, Vegetarian

A small, citrusy step away from the treacle.

December 28, 2011 by Steve

It’s almost the end of the holidays, and we’re starting to be just a bit sick of sweet. While eating our way through what remains of Michelle’s cookie cavalcade (reduced by gifts, get-togethers and Steve’s occasional late-night rustling), we started to think of slightly less sugary finishes to our meals. We make this dish only occasionally, as it requires wonderful winter citrus and restaurant-level pith removal that is beyond Steve’s skill set to meet Michelle’s standards for fresh fruit consumption. […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Grapefruit, Orange, Recipes, Vegetarian

An “au revoir/auf wiedersehen” to apples

December 4, 2011 by Michelle

Steve has probably purchased his last batch of local apples for the year, and since he snacks on several per day (there are many, many doctors out there, after all) he’ll soon be buying what he calls “crapples” at the grocery. Michelle, however, has higher standards, and refuses to cook with the flown- and trucked-in Braeburns, Fujis or sappy-sweet HoneyCrisps that Steve brings home. While that means Tarte Tatin and apple clafoutis must wait until next fall, Michelle recently managed […]

Categories: Apples, Cooking, Food, France, Fruit Desserts, Nuts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes

Honey-Rosemary-Ginger Ice Cream with Peaches

August 21, 2011 by Michelle

While we enjoy rosemary and ginger, we really never considered using them together—and especially not in ice cream. But while pining for something dessert-ish, Michelle found this recipe in Patricia Wells’ The Paris Cookbook and decided to give it a go. She was a little dubious even as she steeped the ginger and rosemary custard, but started to be convinced by its savory aroma. The recipe comes from Alain Dutournier’s Carré des Feuillants, a wonderful restaurant we visited with Michelle’s […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, France, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Peaches/Nectarines, Recipes, Vegetarian

Sugared berries

July 6, 2011 by Michelle

Michelle’s mom’s birthday falls at the end of June, in the middle of blueberry season. We’ve made this wonderful cake several times with success, but never before have we decorated it so beautifully. Michelle first thought of adding lemon zest as a garnish, but was afraid it would overpower the rather subtle lemon cream cheese icing. We had many blueberries on hand thanks to Steve’s frenzied end-of-season buying spree, so Michelle decided to try sugaring them. Dipped in egg white […]

Categories: Blueberries, Cake, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Recipes