Plum

This deconstructed praline version of fondue wows time and again thanks to its simplicity and unexpected flavor. While it’s great any time of year, it’s especially suited to the summertime, when you want to keep cooking to a minimum and you have an abundance of berries, melons, peaches, and grapes at peak flavor. This setup is ideal for parties, as it encourages interaction; there’ll be no wallflowers when you set this out.

This is a family favorite, created by Gianni's aunt Angela. It's a great cake to make when summer fruit is abundant. It is delicious when made with the plums called for in this recipe, but you may also want to consider using figs—one of my favorite fruits—or pitted sweet cherries. You can substitute about 6 quartered figs or 1/2 cup of cherries in place of the plums.

Peaches are amazing for your skin. They provide vitamin A, which helps prevent clogged pores, so your complexion stays clear and healthy.

Since I've spent so many years eating and cooking in Spain, I would be remiss if I didn't include a gazpacho in this book. But alas, this is not your abuela's gazpacho. In this version, peaches, plums, and watermelon all come together in a bright, colorful, chilled soup that is topped with a single seared diver scallop. The tart sour plums allow the sweet plump scallop to feel a little less self-conscious in its summery dress. If you can't find sour plums, substitute sweet plums, preferably golden plums, plus the juice of 2 lemons.

Oven-drying is a slow, gentle cooking process that uses dry heat to extract the water from fruit. Left in the oven for several hours at a low temperature, the fruit does not burn but shrinks and shrivels bit by bit as the water evaporates. As the outside of the fruit dries, the inside turns soft and chewy. Although pears, plums, and apricots are used here, any combination of stone fruit, berries, or other fruit can be dried in a similar way.

Making this rustic, free-form pie couldn’t be more elementary. You still have to know how to prepare the dough and roll it out, but after that it’s quite forgiving. The foldover crust requires less fuss than does a pastry shell baked in a pan. Just arrange the sweetened fruit in the center of the dough, then fold the border up and over the filling and bake. Make sure to taste the fruit before you begin, adding more sugar if it tastes very tart.

Is this recipe for a side dish or a dessert? It’s your call—either way provides a serving of fruit for each diner. You might want to make a double batch of the walnut crunch and use the extra to top fat-free yogurt or hot cereal for breakfast.

You will need to make this colorful dessert at least 8 hours in advance. If you want to stretch it to serve 12, spoon a half-cup of fat-free vanilla frozen yogurt into each bowl and top each serving with a half-cup of Spiced Fruit.

The first tarte Tatin was accidentally invented by the Tatin sisters in France, when their apple tart somehow went into the oven without its bottom crust. The sisters resourcefully laced the forgotten dough on top instead and let the tart finish baking. Once it was out of the oven, they inverted the tart to cover up their mistake. I’m sure they had no idea of the sensation that their sweet mishap would unleash. Unable to leave well enough alone, pesky chefs like me love to play with variations on the classic caramelized upside-down apple tart. In this summer version, I’ve replaced the apples with plums. The plums give off more juice than apples, which makes working with them a little trickier. To compensate for this, I toss the plums in sugar to help draw out some of their juices and then cook them on the stove with butter and sugar, creating a delicious “plum caramel.”

This recipe is a way to show off the best summer fruit you can find. If possible, use an assortment of fruits, such as plums, peaches, figs, and berries, but make sure that all the fruit is up to snuff. Rather than striving for variety and ending up with less-than-ideal examples of each fruit, you’re better off with a simpler salad composed of only the most perfect nectarines or gorgeous peaches all alone. The dressing is made by pounding some of the fruit into a juicy vinaigrette. Figs are my favorite for this purpose. They mellow the vinegar and give the dressing body and chunkiness. If you’ve never had a Marcona almond, you may not forgive me for introducing you to them. Rich and dense, this Spanish almond variety is outrageously addictive. If you can’t find Marcona almonds, use toasted regular almonds or pecans.

After a year of 80-hour workweeks cooking in France, I moved to Boston, where I worked a very civilized 40 hours a week. With so much free time on my hands, I focused my attention that summer on making ice cream sandwiches. I sandwiched lemon ice cream with gingersnaps, coconut ice cream with macadamia nut tuiles, and mint ice cream with chocolate chunk cookies. My friends and neighbors could hardly keep up with the frozen cookie–ice cream combos that filled my freezer. Many summers later at Lucques, local farmer James Birch delivered several unexpected crates of his delicious Santa Rosa plums. We were drowning in summer fruit at the time, and I couldn’t imagine what on earth we were going to do with those extra plums. I remembered that hot Boston summer and decided to purée the plums into a sorbet and sandwich them between chewy molasses cookies. If it’s a truly lazy summer day, you can skip the sandwiching step and serve the sorbet in bowls with the cookies on the side.

One summer morning, I decided to make good use of the ripe stone fruit I had picked up at the farmer’s market. I didn’t have any brioche at home, but I did have a loaf of sourdough. It turned out that the tanginess of the bread was delicious with the sweet fruit. And amaretto adds just the right hint of almond.

This easy dessert can also be made in eight six-ounce ramekins—simply divide the filling and topping evenly among the dishes. The baking time will be the same.

You can substitute an equal amount of chopped peaches or nectarines for the plums. Or use your favorite berries instead—the recipe is very versatile.

Damson plums were first introduced to the British by the Romans, and eventually English settlers brought them over to America, where they thrived in the climate of the eastern United States. Because of their acidic, tart flavor, Damsons make tasty jams and pies. This recipe, handwritten by Mildred in one of her old notebooks, calls for Damson plums—if you substitute another variety of plum, you may need to cut back on the sugar.

Take all the layers of classic cheesecake—crumbly graham-cracker crust, rich, creamy filling, and fresh fruit topping—and combine them in a modern tart. Sour cream ups the tanginess factor of the filling; almonds round out the cookie crust; and sugar sweetens the plums, which are cooked into a jam. Save some of the cooking syrup for tossing with the blueberries before scattering them over the top.

The press-in crust for this tart, flavored with ground hazelnuts and cinnamon, doubles as a crumble topping that browns atop the fruit-and-custard filling as it bakes. It’s another highly adaptable, versatile recipe that works well with any type of stone fruit or berry.

The filling for this Italian-style tart begins with a flavorful reduction of port wine and brown sugar; half a fresh Thai chile is added for a subtle—but entirely optional—bit of heat. Start with the best fruit you can find. Small, oval Italian prune plums are firmer and sweeter than other plums; plus, since they are a freestone fruit, their pits are not attached to the flesh and are therefore easily removed.