Blueberry

Blueberries bring to mind fingers stained purple-blue, fruity pies and cobblers, and warm, fresh-from-the-oven muffins. When buying blueberries, look for plump, firm, fresh berries that are a light, powdery, blue-gray. If refrigerated, fresh blueberries will keep for up to three weeks. When blueberries are in season, freeze them in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet. Once they are frozen solid, transfer to a freezer-safe container. This is a basic formula for making jam. I’ve added a small amount of candied ginger at the end. The underlying ginger flavor is subtle, but it really complements the blueberry.

Sabayon is the French name for zabaglione, a light foamy Italian dessert. It is served warm in glasses or coupes or spooned over a dessert, fruit, or pastry as a topping. Traditionally, it is made with Marsala or port, but it may be prepared using other wines and liqueurs. Use the freshest berries in season. Try all the same berry, or mix them up for a colorful treat.

When we were testing the recipes for this book, all of our neighbors and friends thought we needed to try this one again. Not because it needed work, they just wanted more. Blueberry Turnovers are super easy to make and absolutely delicious. They would make a perfect ending to an “Impressing Your Date” meal. Serve them warm and believe me, your date will be impressed.

The saying “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” was written for this salad. It seems like a simple salad with very few ingredients, but something happens when they are all put together. I can’t explain it so you’ll have to trust me on this one. It is absolutely outstanding.

All of my friends think that you have to have pancake mix to make pancakes. I call this successful marketing by the makers of the mixes. Pancakes are so easy to make and are lighter, fluffier, and more tender when made from scratch. They only take about five minutes extra to make, so forget the mix and see how pancakes are really supposed to taste.

I’m a big fan of the all-American blueberry, and why not? They’re so easy to transform into a versatile sauce that’s equally at ease atop Philly-friendly Cheesecake Ice Cream (page 62) or alongside Hollywood–healthy Vanilla Frozen Yogurt (page 49). Or forge a Franco-American alliance by adding crème de cassis, the deep, dark black currant liqueur from Dijon (see the Variation at the end of the recipe).

When I was a professional baker, foodies would walk into the kitchen, look down their noses at my gorgeous flats of cultivated blueberries, and sneer, “Oh, I only like wild blueberries.” Then they’d stand there making idle chat while grabbing fistfuls of domestic blueberries and gobbling them up. Wild blueberries are indeed wonderful, but they can be hard to find (unlike annoying food snobs), so you can use any kind of blueberry here. Just don’t gobble them all up, or let anyone else do so, before you get a chance to use them.

When I wrote my first book on desserts, I told the story of the blueberry bush my father planted when I was growing up, which was an early lesson in disappointment (there were many more to come, but that was the first). As soon as the berries would ripen, the wily and evil blackbirds would come and snag any and all berries before I got to taste even one. When I returned home about a year ago, my sister had just sold the house and was moving away, and I noticed that the lonely berry bush was still there. And still devoid of berries. Although I gave up hope a long time ago, I considered warning the family moving in not to get their hopes up for any ripe blueberries. But I decided to let them find out on their own. They’ll learn the same lesson I did, and end up buying blueberries at the store, where the blackbirds can’t get them. Hopefully they’ll spare themselves the disappointment of a life as unfulfilled as mine, devoid of homegrown blueberries.

One day while cooking some blueberries, it occurred to me that the sharp taste of a sizable shot of gin would nicely complement the berries, so I reached for the bottle and poured some in. Gin’s herbaceous flavor does indeed marry nicely with blueberries—it can hardly be tasted once cooked, but somehow it just rounds out the blueberry notes. Now, whenever I cook with blueberries, a bit of gin finds its way into the mix.

If you’re as wild about berries as I am, you’ll find that this pie is the height of luxury and one of the season’s greatest treats. It’s a dessert that I make only in the summer, at the moment when berries are abundant and at their peak. When I lived in San Francisco, I’d drive east across the bay to Monterey Market in Berkeley where flats of berries were so plentiful—and so inexpensive—that I found it impossible not to come home with at least a few piled up in my trunk. In addition to turning the berries into jams, compotes, and sorbets, I’d always bake this pie. A total of 6 cups of berries makes up the filling—use whichever types you prefer. Unless you buy berries by the flat, like I did, most berries are sold in half-pint or pint baskets, so expect to have some leftover fruit, which I know you’ll put to good use. I always did.

This is the classic upside-down cake that takes advantage of the summer season, when plums and berries are in full swing. I love how the flavor of tart plums contrasts with the toffeelike brown sugar topping. But feel free to swap out other favorite fruits of summer; I offer a few of suggestions in Variations, below.

Sweet blueberries and juicy peaches remind me of summer. With its buttery biscuit topping, this cobbler brings back memories of backyard picnics and barbeques. Don’t forget the ice cream when serving this dessert. If you like, you can substitute the buttermilk with low-fat plain kefir, a cultured yogurtlike drink. Full of Lactobacillus acidophilus, a beneficial probiotic that aids in digestion, kefir is widely available at health food stores.

Here you have the Queen of Tarts: fresh figs and apricot jam are a wonderful counterpart to the sweet and tangy taste of the seasonal berries and kiwi.

The crumbly cinnamon and almond topping gives this blueberry pie a sweet and crunchy crown. Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a scrumptious dessert that will make you nostalgic for the good old days. Although you’ll need only 1 crust for this pie, I’d advise against cutting the piecrust recipe in half since it will make it difficult to handle. Instead, freeze the extra pie dough. You’ll be halfway done the next time your urge for pie comes up. Make this pie vegan by using butter substitute in the topping and crust.

This blueberry topping can also be used over ice cream or yogurt.

The texture of this cake is that of angel food cake, but made with whole grains, it has more substance than the white version.

These are some of my favorite muffins. The quinoa flour and cornmeal give them a beautiful golden color and a nice texture, a perfect combination with the juicy blueberries.

Blueberries contain lots of pectin, which helps soothe the stomach, and one of their active compounds can help prevent cancer cells from getting nourishment.

A lot of people wonder why adding healthy items like flaxseeds to a decent-tasting smoothie destroys the taste. The answer is that the smoothie recipe didn’t take into account the items you’d want to add. The normal fix is to add a ton of sweetener, but I don’t agree with that approach, especially in recipes for cancer patients. But the berry blast of this smoothie plays well with the vital flax and whey. The abundant antioxidants make this smoothie one for the books.

I know they say apple pie is about as American as you can get, but I give that moniker to blueberry pie instead. When I think of pie, I think summertime and blueberries! Every summer, we visit my father in western Massachusetts and go to a big field with the most prolific old blueberry bushes you’ve ever seen, and fill our buckets with heaping cups of blueberries. We eat a lot of them right then and there while picking, but the rest get made into pancakes, and best of all, baked up into pie!