Blackberry

This is the best and easiest way to get your jelly donut fix without pulling out a pastry bag or developing some other fancy-but-messy stuffing procedure. I specifically use sugar for this recipe because I think it holds the jam together nicely, and I prefer to finish it with powdered sugar.

I admit that the first time a customer requested hamentaschen I had to go to the local kosher bakery to see what the person was talking about. But then I recognized them immediately and I quickly fell in love with every variety of light pastry stuffed with jam. Use any preserve or jam in the center that you like, but I’ve included a recipe for my favorite blackberry filling. You can sub in a different berry without trouble, with the exception of raspberries, which tend to be very watery and don’t, for the most part, thicken up all that well.

Spice and fruit and caramel cakes all rolled into one. This cake brings in a lot of money at a bake sale.

I love berries and lamb. The deep flavor of tender spring lamb takes on the essence of first-of-the-season berries, blending a perfect combination of sweetness with just enough tartness to make you pucker up.

Monica makes the best, most intense fruit pies I have ever eaten, so good that her friends beg for birthday pie instead of cake. She keeps the kids happy while the pie cools with “whim wham”: While the pie is baking, take the rolled-out dough scraps, sprinkle them with cinnamon-sugar or fold a little jam inside, and bake until browned.

Think of pairing fruit in recipes like planning a seating chart at a dinner party. It’s usually a good idea to split up your two anarchist teenage nephews, right? Similarly, in a crumble it’s best to avoid putting two tart berries, like blackberries and cranberries, in the same bowl. For this recipe, I partner the testy blackberry with a dose of mellow peach, whose sweet charms keep the party on an even keel. Also, blackberries tend to lose their structure under heat, while the peaches—like apples and pears—stay true to form and give your crumble hearty body.

My sister Sarah, the planet’s most outrageously particular eater, once told me: “I would rather starve than eat something that isn’t a symphony in my mouth.” As I would gladly eat a toupee if my blood sugar sank low enough, people like Sarah are like Martians to me. This cake is the perfect bridge between you and the Sarahs in your life. When I finally had the chance to offer her a slice, she took a bite, shut her eyes, raised a finger like a conductor’s baton, and began humming Beethoven’s Fifth. No joke. I’ve really become partial to the strawberry filling, but on occasion, at Sarah’s request, I substitute both blackberries and blueberries. Stay creative.

This dessert was inspired by “Tomato Tim” Stark of Eckerton Hill Farm at the Union Square farmers’ market in New York City. We were talking one morning and he gave me some tomatoes that were so sweet they tasted like berries. So I roasted them and paired them with super-ripe blackberries for an after-dinner fruit salad. Use a mix of tiny tomatoes for the best-looking and -tasting dessert.

When we were testing milkshake recipes for Bobby’s Burger Palace, I learned some interesting things about fruit-based milkshakes, especially about milkshakes made with fresh berries: Berries are very expensive. Berries are extremely perishable. Berries are inconsistent in taste (ranging from sweet to tart) and texture (ranging from watery to dense). All these factors presented a problem when we were trying to create a thick, flavorful milkshake. We needed to find an alternative, still using fresh fruit, that would produce a consistently thick and flavorful milkshake every single time. We found a company on Long Island that produces fresh fruit purees. The purees are thick and almost jam-like in texture, and they add incredible fresh fruit flavor while not compromising the thickness of the shake. Now the recipe from the company that produces the purees for us is top secret, but I have created something very close to make at home. In addition to providing a wonderful fresh fruit flavor, these bases will also keep in the refrigerator or freezer for a good amount of time—unlike fresh berries, which tend to go bad in a few days. Just add 1/4 cup or so to vanilla or chocolate ice cream for an intensely good shake.

As a native New Yorker, I grew up eating my fair share of Junior’s cheesecake from Brooklyn, and I have to admit that it still continues to be one of my favorite desserts to this day. So while coming up with ideas for this chapter, I thought, cream cheese—in a milkshake? Why not? I know that strawberries are the traditional fruit topping for a cheesecake, and you can definitely use them or any other berry or fruit in the recipe, but I have a special fondness for blackberries. This milkshake is so rich, you might want to share.

These delicious, good-for-you breakfast sandwiches are reminiscent of traditional Danish pastries straight from the bakery.

The rosemary adds a sophisticated taste to this old favorite. It’s great in the summertime when blackberries are at their peak.

Chris Ford, pastry chef at Washington, D.C.'s Rogue 24, brings this British-style "pudding" to picnics and BBQs. Serve with whipped cream and more berries.

These skillet-fried biscuits are a little sturdier than many other biscuits in order to hold the fresh berries intact. The butter bumps up the flavor as well. When they are fried, they remind me of the blueberries we picked early one morning as Girl Scouts and made into pancakes—a culinary highlight of my childhood. But they are very special baked as well. Either way, they’re a winner.