Rustic Fruit Desserts

June 1, 2009
Nothing evokes nostalgia like hot, bubbling fruit desserts. Even their names summon up images of bygone days: pandowdy, betty, buckle, slump, cobbler, crumble. These are the sorts of meal closers that moms and grandmas have baked for decades to use up the freshest of fresh bounty from garden and orchard. Schreiber and Richardson have sensibly organized this collection of recipes by season. Spring desserts feature rhubarb, one of the earliest gifts of the newly invigorated soil, ginger adding fragrance to rhubarbs tang atop a buckle. Summers berriesraspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and boysenberriesfigure singly in cobblers or combined into a layered trifle. Autumn brings juicy pears and rich pumpkins for pandowdies and custards. And winters apples never fail to yield pies, cakes, and a host of other comforting desserts. A great, practical, unpretentious resource for home cooks.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)