« Stone Fruit Anxiety »

"HERE’S a dirty little secret of summer. What should be a beautiful and inspiring sight — your kitchen, overflowing with seasonal produce — is sometimes an intimidating tableau of anxiety."

Julia Moskin, New York Times 

Last year, Julia Moskin published a terrific piece in the Dining and Wine Section of the NY Times entitled 'Raw Panic' -- Coping with Summer's Bounty. And believe me, anyone who belongs to a CSA can relate to raw panic in one form or the other.

For me, my bi-monthly vegetables shares are more than manageable. A pot of ratatouille here, a quick stir-fry there, and I am good to go. But my weekly fruit shares are a whole other story.  

Two years ago, my anxiety peaked during raspberry season. It was a terrific year for berries, and our fruit farmer, Fred Wilkow, sent us pint after pint of huge, sweet berries. I ate as many as I could, but at a certain point, I declared defeat and started to freeze the excess. Sometimes, you just have to pick and choose your battles. 

Last year, the locus of my anxiety shifted to stone fruit (peaches, nectarines, apricots and various types of plums). Because in addition to my weekly CSA share, there was tons of fruit coming from points east, including:

• Peaches and apricots from Wickham's Fruit Farm  
• My parent's peach tree, which needed to be picked while they were on vacation 
• My mother's CSA (stone) fruit share, which I picked up in her absense.

 Definitely a lot of fruit!

So at some point, I decided that I could stew in my stonefruit compote, or I could head to the kitchen and use up the excess fruit. And being me, I chose the latter.

And the fruit of my labor? Well, here is a quick snap shot to enjoy and inspire: 

At last count, I baked 7 peach pies last summer. Some of the pies had blueberries sprinkled in. Some had a traditional top crust. And many more had a crumb topping (which is my personal favorite).

My go-to Crumb Topping:

1/2 c (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/2 c all purpose flour

3/4 c packed light brown sugar

1 cup rolled oats

Bourbon poached apricots are one of my favorite summer desserts -- and these lovely apricots from Wickham's were ideal for pouching: ripe, firm and blemish free.

The poaching liquid for this recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart's recipe for Bourbon-Poached Peaches. But unlike the peach recipe, I do not peel the apricots, nor do I pouch the fruit on the stove top. 

 

Rather, I reduce the liquid to the desired consistency and pour it directly onto the prepared fruit. This method allows the fruit to soften, but retain it's integrity. After it cools, I store the fruit and syrup in a ball jar in the refrigerator.

The apricots are delicious when served with vanilla ice cream, with a drizzle of syrup.  They are also delicious served over pound cake with a dollop of whipped cream. 

Stone Fruit 'Tea Cake' definitely takes the prize for the most unusual dessert of the summer. Neither cake nor tart, this rustic dessert almost defies description. A fruit-filled short bread perhaps?

This recipe is terrific because you can fill it with any combination of stone fruit. In this particle rendition, I used peaches, nectarines and several varieties of plums. 

The same dough is pressed into the bottom (to form the bottom crust) and sprinkled on the top. No rolling pins or advanced baking techniques required. The tea cake gets a sprinkle of tourbino sugar before it is popped into the oven.

I served the finished tea cake on a cutting board, after roughly cutting it into slices. It was wiped out within minutes.

And then there were a dizzying number of plums, in many different shapes and colors. 

I used Italian plums (top right) to make this plum tart, which came together quite quickly. The crust, which is made with a combination of olive and vegetable oil, also gets pressed into the tart pan -- eliminating the need to chill, roll and blind bake a pastry shell. A mixture of butter, flour, sugar and salt finishes off the tart before it goes into the oven.

The flesh of Italian plums is a pale yellow. But as you can see, the aubergine-colored skins turn the fruit juices a lovely crimson red. A real stunner to be sure.

Finally, I used these lovely Santa Rosa plums to make a simple plum cake. Once again, the lovely skins steal the show after the cake is baked. The recipe suggests dusting the cake with powdered sugar. I decided not to. Afterall, who would want to cover up the gorgeous fruit?

The printable recipes are here:

Bourbon Poached Apricots

Pound Cake

Stone Fruit Tea Cake

Plum Tart

Plum Cake