Berry

If your only impression of a zeppole was formed at a street fair, where they are served hot out of the oil and dusted with powdered sugar, prepare to have your socks knocked off. With these you get your doughnut and coffee all in one delectable bite.

This brunch dish brings together sweet and savory flavors in a way that is insanely good. The cheese melts into the raspberry jam and, combined with the brown sugar, makes this surprisingly addictive.

Limoncello is a tart and refreshing lemon liqueur reminiscent of hot summer days on the island of Capri. The bright yellow and deep blue colors make this cooler lovely to serve at a summer party; make it by the pitcherful and serve over ice in tall, skinny glasses so you can see the buoyant blueberries float.

Pound cakes may not be the flashiest cakes in the baker’s arsenal, but when you are craving something rich and satisfying, few things can beat them. Raspberries make this one special, with a tart tang and lovely flecks of fuchsia when you slice into the loaf. I dreamed this up for my husband, who is particularly fond of raspberries in his desserts, but now it’s become a year-round favorite with us both. Try the vin santo cream on poached fruit or even in a cup of strong coffee. It’s unusual but delicious.

When I was little my grandfather used to spread fresh ricotta on a slice of bread for me and top it with a thick layer of sugar. I loved it then and I still love these flavors together. This is a somewhat healthier version of that childhood treat. The bread now plays a starring rather than supporting role in the form of sweet, crunchy croutons paired with ripe berries and creamy cheese—sooo good. Serve it for breakfast if you are feeling decadent.

At Christmas time in Italy every visitor seems to show up with a panettone for his host, meaning most homes end up with lots of extra panettone. I’ve become pretty creative when it comes to finding new uses for this delicious, fruit-laden yeast bread. Bread pudding is one obvious possibility, but I once cut some up for croutons and thought they were sensational. Combined with candy-sweet roasted fruits and peppery arugula, they make a very sophisticated dish to serve with poached eggs for brunch or alongside grilled chicken or chops.

The Clafouti is essentially a fruit-laden baked pancake. I love this Americanized version, which is crunchy and sweet.

If you take soft, ripe fruit, top it with a fancy sauce like crème Anglaise, and run the whole thing under the broiler, you have a four-star dessert. But if you top the fruit with something like sweetened heavy cream, whipped just enough so that it holds some body when broiled, or sweetened sour cream—which hardly needs to be whisked—you can produce a similarly glorious dessert in less than half the time. Although this preparation is lightning-quick, it has to be constantly watched while cooking. Get the broiler hot, put the dish right under the heating element, and keep your eyes open. You want the topping to burn a little bit—it will smell like toasting marshmallows—but obviously not too much. When the topping is nearly uniformly brown, with a few black spots, it’s done. The fruit will not have cooked at all.

A simple, traditional, and super-rich dessert.

Frozen pound cake is fine for the summer pudding (homemade is better, of course, though not one in ten people will know the difference), but fresh berries are essential.

Here’s a strawberry dessert that not only is delicious and intriguing but also can compete with plain fruit in lightness. Strawberries are sugared to juice them up a bit, then drizzled with balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with a pinch of black pepper. The result is so elegant that you’ll find it in great restaurants from here to Emilia-Romagna, the home of balsamic vinegar. It’s an ideal dessert after a heavy meal. Serve, if you like, with a few crisp cookies or a slice of pound, sponge, or angel food cake. This will not hold for any length of time; you can sugar the berries an hour or two before you want to serve them, but no longer.

This mixture of sour and whipped cream is akin to crème fraîche, but I find it more delicious. It’s killer on strawberries.

This recipe and the four that follow share one basic requirement: in-season, preferably locally grown strawberries. In the event that you can’t find strawberries that match that description, substitute any other berries—blackberries, blueberries, raspberries—that are at their peak. Look for strawberries that are dark red, inside and out. The sugar will juice up any strawberries and make them sweeter of course, but it cannot work miracles.

A standard braised chicken, with a not-so-standard tart fruit sauce whose acidity cuts through the richness of the meat to make a dish that is always a surprising hit. The sauce can also be used with roast chicken or, for that matter, pork or turkey. Any of these can be served with Kasha (page 528) or any other simple grain dish, and a salad or vegetable.

Pronounced cla-FOO-tee, this is one of the most successful spontaneous desserts you can add to your repertoire, yet fancy enough for a blowout dinner party. It can be made with any ripe fruit (including berries, and even apples if you cook them) and (aside from such tasks as pitting cherries and the like) takes well under an hour to prepare. Note that in place of the cream and milk mixture you can use half-and-half.

Berries are a big deal in Scandinavia. The farther north you go, the more precious they become. They are not only enjoyed fresh and preserved; they are celebrated, almost worshiped. This Jell-O-like dessert is a beaut.

Made with soft berries, this is straightforward, easy, and delicious; it also has beautiful color. I like it best with blueberries, because they need no straining. If you use raspberries or other berries with seeds, force the soup through a fine strainer instead of pureeing it in the blender to remove them. This is great not only as a dessert but also for breakfast or as a snack.

Trifles are anything but trifles: they take a good deal of work to put together, they’re about as caloric as desserts get, and, in the right serving vessel—like a large glass dish with tall, straight sides that reveals the tempting layers of cake, cream, fruit—they’re absolute showstoppers. In England, one is often wowed by the guiltless and masterful employment of loads of cream in many desserts. Trifles are a showcase for the British love of cream—in this case both whipped and pastry.

Neither blueberries nor cobblers are Italian, but one of the largest and oldest blueberry farms in what is called the blueberry capital of the world is Indian Brand Farms, run by the DiMeo family of New Jersey. I had a wonderful blueberry cobbler when I visited, and my version of that recipe is simple and delicious.