Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More [Hardcover]

I pre-ordered the book from Amazon after making Lemon Blueberry Buckle, from an adaptation of that recipe published in the local paper. I have alfeady made several recipes from the book, all but one of them were highly successful. The book is small (a big plus). Most recipes take up only one page. Most two page recipes are on facing pages. The photographs make me want to make almost every recipe. The book is deeply satisfying and comforting.

I've tried the following recipes, all of which yielded a fresh, full flavored product with just enough sugar for a pleasant balance between tart and sweet.

- Lemon Blueberry Buckle was a keeper, tart and sweet. It inspired me to buy the book.

- Cherry Almond bars did not work.
Since the recipe clains takes its inspiration from lemon bars, there must be an error. All lemon bars prebake the bottom crust and then either pour the filling on top or make a custard and then pour it on top. They all bake the crust for about 30 minutes and the ssembled bars until the top is set. The Cherry Almond bars really need a total redo. The cherry filling was very good but the bottom was soggy and the top was undercooked. I've written an email to Julie Richardson about the problem. They are deluged with comments and praise from readers. Since it was the my second recipe and the first was so sucessful, I decided to try another.

- Vanilla-spiked plum Galette was extraordinary.
With plums from the farmers market, it was both tart. Just be careful when making it - place the parchment paper on a well made of aluminum foil, otherwise the juice will spread over the oven and burn. I used vanilla sugar for the vanilla infusion.

- Short Dough made a beautiful baked shell for a tart.
I modified the recipe substituting sour cream for heavy cream.

- Galette dough was much better than my old standby of Pasta Frolla by Flo Braker from Baking with Julia [Julia Child].

On balance, the successful recipes are all keepers. Some (Quince, Apple, and Brown Butter Tarte) inspired me to try other recipes on the web. I made an a really good, elegant quince brown butter tarte -- a variation of a financier - my spouse said it was the best dessert ever that had made.

I look forward to making and modifying more of the recipes from this book as the seasons change and different fruits become available in the farmer's market.

This is a wonderful addition to my collection of cookbooks which focus on local, seasonal foods. The authors hail from the Pacific Northwest but many of the fruits they use are available seasonally throughout the U.S. It is easy to understand why Gourmet magazine chose this for a Cook Book Club selection.

The authors explain the difference between tarts (pie without a top crust), galette (free-form tart which doesn't require a pan), cobbler (deep-dish fruit pie with a dense pastry on top), grunt/slump (cobbler cooked on top of stove), crisp/crumble (baked fruit dessert with streusel topping), betty (fruit layered between or on top of diced bread cubes), pandowdy (deep-dish dessert with a crumbled biscuit topping), buckle (cake batter poured in a single layer with berries added to batter), teacake (simple cake like coffee cake), fool (summer fruit layered with whipped cream) and trifle (layered cake, thick cream, and fresh fruit).

This type of dessert is less fussy than frosted cakes, soufflés and other more complicated desserts. Many of these recipes are fairly quick and involve cleaning and chopping fruit and then preparing the dough or crumble topping. For example, Mimi's German Apple Cake requires only 15 minutes of prep time before it goes in the oven.

The book is into four chapters by season plus one Pantry chapter. Each seasonal chapter includes five full-page color photos of finished dishes and a few photos of ingredients or unfinished dishes. You can look up desserts by fruit in the index (some fruits such as apples appear in more than one chapter).

The 14 recipes in the Spring chapter utilize rhubarb, cherry and strawberries. Examples include Upside-Down Sweet Cherry Cake, Rhubarb and Bing Cherry Brown Betty, and Lemon Buttermilk Rhubarb Bundt Cake. The Summer chapter includes 17 recipes which highlight plums, fresh berries (raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries) and stone fruit (peaches, apricots, plums) and include Gingered Peach and Blackberry Pandowdy, Raspberry Red Currant Cobbler, and Caramel Peach Grunt. The 13 Fall recipes utilize apples, quince, pears and figs and include Maple Apple Dumpling, Grape Galette, and Upside-Down Pear Chocolate Cake. The Winter chapter include 16 recipes which utilize apples, pears, cranberries and citrus fruits. The Winter recipes include Carmelized Pear Bread Pudding, Olive Oil Citrus Cake, and Cranberry Buckle with Vanilla Crumb.

The Pantry chapter includes recipes for different doughs and pastry, both Vanilla and Berry Ice Cream, Vanilla bean Shortbread, Vanilla Chiffon Cake, and more.

The authors describe what to look for to choose the freshest produce, how to store it (in or out of the refrigerator) and whether the fruit freezes well. There are a few recipes which use dried fruit (helpful in the off-season as well as when you need to through something together for surprise guests). There are hints throughout the book on advice on how to zest citrus, toast nuts, making caramel, whipping cream, removing currant stems, and more. In addition, there is note with each recipe about how to store it and whether it freezes well.

Another good book with similar desserts (but no duplicate recipes that I caught) is Cobblers & Crumbles. I recommend Rustic Fruit Desserts between the two as it includes the information on seasonal fruit but you can't go wrong with either.

Rustic Fruit Desserts is a book that contains recipes on exactly what is sounds like: rustic fruit desserts. These recipes use a lot of pears, apples, and stone fruits; and use them in old-fashioned way: making pandowdies and slumps, for instance. I've tried out a few of the recipes and they all turned out extremely well, delicious and beautiful in a "rustic" way.

However, a word of caution: if you don't have the right kind of apple, or pear, etc. the flavor will vary tremendously. Sometimes that is a good thing, though.

If you are looking for traditional homemade, pass-through-the-generations kind of recipe book, this is the one!