Fruit Dessert

Guava is one of the most sensual fruits, and it truly shines when it’s cooked. Filled with luscious caramel and toasted pecans, this treat defines sinful. Look for guavas that are soft to the touch and fragrant. You can also find them frozen or puréed, but make sure they’re not loaded with sugar or anything else.

Tejocotes are small fruits similar to crab apples but are quite sour and have inedible seeds. The name derives from the word texocotl, meaning “sour, wild, or hard fruit,” and they are abundant at the end of the year. My maternal grandmother, Juanita, used to make this delicious treat and always reserved a huge jar just for me.

These sweet peaches are used often in Mexican cooking primarily to decorate cakes and to eat with ice cream or pancakes. I thought it might be nice to have this recipe so you can make some at the height of peach season and use them in the colder months when fresh local ones are out of the question.

As my friend Josefina says, we Mexicans love two kinds of sweets: the really over-the-top sweet, sticky ones that make your teeth ache, and the tart-spicy ones that make your mouth pucker, scorch your palate, and make the tip of your tongue salivate. Many of these latter kinds are made with tamarind. This recipe is one that most people think of when it comes to dulce de tamarindo. They are sold along the highways and beaches of Acapulco. Even when they are mixed with sugar, they remain tart and acidic; however, I have included an option for adding citric acid for those who really want an extreme puckery sensation. These tamarind balls have seeds in them. You can make them without the seeds, but it’s a little extra work (however, I don’t think you’ll mind sucking the seeds, trying to get all the tasty candy off).

There are countless sweets made from shredded or ground coconut, called cocadas. Some are cooked with milk and baked; others are mixed with piloncillo, thickened with eggs, and finished with liqueur or simply cooked in their own juice. How to choose one recipe? This was no easy task, but I chose this particular one from a small village in Yucatan, where I found a stand that sold more than twenty different kinds. The fresh lime zest brightens the slightly burnt flavor of the caramel that enrobes the tasty coconut morsels. This could even be used as a sort of jam if cooked a little less. For a little more information on coconut, see page 9.

Crystallized fruit is basically fruit that’s been cooked for a long time in a sugar or piloncillo syrup until it is almost translucent (hence the name). t is customary to presoak the fruit overnight in lime or calcium oxide so hat it retains its shape after the long cooking process. The town of Santa ruz Acalpixa in Xochimilco is one of the best places to appreciate the normous variety of candied fruit, including prickly pears, figs, oranges, cactus paddles, and even chiles. A word of caution, though: beware of bees when making this! The process takes several days, but it’s quite simple and the fruit will fast for a several months and up to a year if stored properly. You can use he same method for many kinds of fruit, so pick some that are in season but slightly underripe so they don’t fall apart.

You can find all sorts of corn flour (masa harina) in Mexico, and their colors can seem almost fake. The best place to find them is the food mills, and they are commonly found near markets. Whenever I can, I like to make this dish with pink or blue corn because it enhances the color in a natural way and it somehow seems more fun.

Almonds were used in most of the convents, and these prunes filled with an almond candy similar to marzipan capture the love the nuns had for this ingredient. You can always buy almond flour, but I find that the flavor of the nut really comes through when you make it at home, and the honey adds a delightful sweetness. You can fill dried figs, dried apricots, or dates instead.

GINA Peaches are one of my favorite fruits, and cream always complements them. This dessert is refreshing and light: you don’t want to get your man too full, or else you will be watching him sleep. The sweet champagne and fresh vanilla will relax his senses just enough.

PAT I have a confession—when I was a kid, I would jump my grandmother’s neighbor’s fence and pluck peaches from Mr. Johnson’s trees. I figured that there were so many of those little darlings hanging from Mr. Johnson’s trees he surely wouldn’t miss a few. Looking back on it, you could say those peaches helped me develop an appreciation for the simple pleasures life has to offer. Over the years, we’ve grown fond of grilling sweet fruit. (Yes, we do “grill everything.”) When you add the smoky flavor from the grill to the sweetness of the apricots and peaches, well, you are talking about a different kind of dessert from the shortcake you’re used to. Ours also calls for biscuits (talk about a Neely spin on things!). And the turbinado sugar is just a fancy name for sugar in the raw . . . like me!

This dessert is layered with toasty, earthy flavors, from the concentrated sweetness of the roasted figs to the nutty brown butter to the chocolate ganache deepened with a touch of coffee. You can ride the sweet-salty wave by sprinkling with a finishing salt at the end, or simply dust with powdered sugar. You can’t go wrong.

There are fruit people, and there are chocolate people. Even chocolate people will lick their plates clean when presented with a refreshing, lemony panna cotta strewn with wine-steeped peaches. Panna cotta makes a nice spring and summertime dessert because it’s not so rich that you leave the table feeling stuffed, and the lemon verbena adds a welcome, herbaceous tang. This dish is perfect for company because the panna cotta must be made ahead, and the peaches “cook” while coming to room temperature.

As homemade desserts go, cobblers are about as easy as they come; even better, they are endearingly homey and invariably good. The fluffy cream biscuits floating over this blackberry cobbler couldn’t be simpler—just mix and drop. Serve warm with sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

This is my mom’s recipe for what she calls a “dump cobbler,” where all you do is mix the batter, dump the fruit on top, and pop it in the oven. It’s soft and moist—almost like a pudding—with big peach flavor. Try different summer fruits, like cherries, blueberries, blackberries, or plums, in place of the peaches. Serve with Farm-Stand Peach Ice Cream (page 363) or lightly sweetened whipped cream.

When pineapple caramelizes, whether on the grill or in the oven, its bright, tart flavor mellows to something warm and sweet—a neat trick that has long been the calling card of traditional pineapple upside-down cake. My grandmother’s version, with its canned pineapple rings, was one of my dad’s all-time favorite sweets. It’s one of mine, too, but when I make it, I start with freshly grilled pineapple to double the caramelization effect and add a splash of bourbon to drive the point home.

In the summer, I like nothing better than to stand in the shade of my big, old fig tree and pluck the ripe fruit to a humming chorus of bees and scavenging birds. Figs are so short-lived—in terms of both season and shelf life—that you have to act quickly to enjoy them at all, so I always feel like I’ve done well when I come away with a jar or two of jam. A nip or three of brandy gives this version a smoky, complex flavor.

The easiest way to core a pineapple is to quarter it and then slice off the tip of each wedge, as illustrated below.