Everyone needs to know how to make dessert

In my experience, people who cook frequently refer to themselves as "food people" or "dessert people." I know many really, truly good cooks, who are just too intimidated by the "art of pastry" to try dessert. And then there are people who never "cook," but go into the kitchen and whip up a fantastic chococlate souffle, or a knock you flat fruit crisp, a pie that is so flaky it makes you weep, and so forth.

I'm hoping that the second group of people "get" some of the recipes and ideas in this series of entries. You can read the rest of this if you like (I wish you will), but this one is mostly directed to the first group.

SHAME ON YOU!!!! How many of you have a signature dish that you spend hours making, gets oohs and ahs and that people PLEAD with you to make? My friend Dave, for example, who DOES bake, makes killer brisket (which I wouldn't attempt to make for all the truffles in Italy). We have a friend who lives in update NY, who will go into a kitchen, grab the flour, the eggs, and fifteen minutes later have homemade pasta on a plate that feels like a cloud. If you can do this, you CAN make dessert. And if baking still intimidates you, well, here's a good one.

If you mention "dessert" to people, almost always they will think of "something with CHOCOLATE." And there's everything right with this. Chocolate is a wonderful basis for many wonderful dessert. But.... more times than not, if you put a menu in front of those very same people, and there's a chocolate dessert, and a fruit dessert, they will order the fruit dessert.

EVERYBODY likes fruit. Not everybody likes every type of fruit, but everyone has a whole group of fruits that they like, some that they love, and some that they will reach for, forgetting their manners to "get their share." My friend Kevin is very upfront about this. He said to me once "I'll eat anything sweet, but if there's a grapefruit dessert on the menu, I'm having that." For me, it's quinces. For Guy, it's berries. And I'll bet there's one for you too.

So, you would be dessert maker, here's a general formula for one of the most simple, yet one of the most wonderful desserts in the world: baked, stuffed fruit.

Now, I'm not talking about baked apples, although I don't understand why these seem to have fallen out of favor. A good baked apple, smelling of cinammon, vanilla, with crunchy bits against a soft apple , is a true thing of beauty. And the guidelines below CAN be used for apples. But I'm talking about other fruits that you haven't baked: pears, peaches, plums, apricots, anything that has a cavity that can be filled. Unquestionably, at this time of year, if you're eating seasonally in the northeast, that's apples and pears for the most part. And nothing is wrong with using these. There are a skazillion variations you can work with from the guidelines.

You will need fruit, that is just a little firmer than you would want it to be to eat out of hand. You will also need a sweet or flavored liquid of some kind (juice, cider, sweet wine, vermouth, something like that). You will also need butter, sugar, and some kind of sweet crumbs. Cookie crumbs, or sweet bread crumbs, or cake crumbs, anything like that. Amaretto cookies are good for this, in just about all fruits, as are ginger snaps with autumn and winter fruits. Shortbread cookies - the plain ones - go with just about anything. I have some stale brioche crumbs that I'm thinking will make a good filling for some bosc pears. The "bottom line" is to link some kind of crunchy thing with fruit. Trust your tastebuds. For example, anything almond will go with any summer fruit (crack a pit sometime and look at that little almondy thing: what the French call the noyau. HINT). They also go with apples and pears, and you can treat them as the universal, but be a bit creative. Gingersnaps? APPLES (or pears). Vanilla wafers? That says "pear" to me, but maybe it says apple to you. What you want is two parts of crumbs, to one part of sugar. So if you have half a cup of cookie crumbs, mix it with a quarter cup of sugar. And then add the same quantity of soft, unsweetened butter, and combine it till you get a nice mass of sweet, fragrant, "stuff."

Now get your fruit ready. For just about anything but apples, cut the fruit in half and cut out the core part where the seeds are. You may want to enlarge it a bit for pears, but not too large. The dessert is still about the fruit. For apples, you'll have to carve them from the top. It will be easier if you cut a small horizontal slice at the top and then cut in with a small knife, but I will tell you, apples are more difficult than other fruit (and maybe I just answered my own question about the decline in popularity of baked apples). Put your fruit in a buttered glass or ceramic baking dish, cut side up. If you have extra filling around - and I hope you do - sprinkle it over the fruit as well.

Now, you need a flavored liquid. Again, you have to work with your tastebuds here. Think about drinks and what they taste like. For example, when I drink gewurtztraminer or riesling wines, I always taste apples. And sauternes taste like apricots to me. I always think of peaches with sweet marsala, and I always think of pears with a good, oaky chardonnay. Whatever works for you (and it doesn't have to be alcoholic), pour about a half inch of it in the pan with the fruit. Then cover it with foil, and put it in a 375 oven for about twenty minutes. Take off the foil and bake it for another ten minutes. Test it with a knife to see if it's tender enough for you. If it is, bring everything out of the oven. If not, let it cook another ten minutes.

This dish is impossible to eat right out of the oven. Nothing will burn your mouth worse than hot fruit (Trust me on this). So let it sit for about fifteen minutes, then serve it up, pouring some of the juices over it. If you like, you can put some whole cookies corresponding to what you used for the stuffing alongside of it, and/or some dairy based "thing." I don't find them necessary at all with this dessert, but if I were doing pears at this time of year, I might put some creme fraiche next to them, or some plain mascarpone cheese, with some of the juice over the cheese as well.

If you do this with pears, at this time of year, you'll realize how many variations you've just opened up to yourself. And all you savory cooks have just become pastry chefs, in one short lesson. You may never go back!