Strawberries appeared at the Amherst Farmers Market at the very beginning of June, making a splash of scarlet among the green vegetables and plants, two weeks earlier than usual this year.
Connie Gillen of Sunset Farm in Amherst credited the late-May heat wave with bringing them along fast. It also seems to have made them sweeter and more succulent.
Local strawberries are still with us, the vanguard of a berry season with blueberries arriving in July, raspberries, blackberries and gooseberries at the end of that month and on into August, with cranberries bringing up the rearguard at the end of September and staying with us until Thanksgiving.
Writing of strawberries William Butler, a 17th-century English clergyman, said “Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did.”
But all local berries have their moments.
Soon the strawberries will be behind us, and we will be thrilling to the dusky bloom of blueberries and their juicy splotches in pancakes and muffins.
After that we will be in thrall to the hints of spice and flowers that perfume raspberries.
Then there’s the hunter-gatherer joy of reaching for the biggest, shiniest wild blackberries or the luxurious contemplation of the fatter cultivated kind.
The wild woodland strawberries — which were the only ones we had until late-18th century botanists crossed European with American varieties — were emblematic of the Virgin since flowers and fruit appear at the same time, and the triple leaves symbolized the Trinity.
Both blueberries and raspberries will grow as far north as the Arctic Circle, and northern varieties are often considered best. Maine, for example, gets accolades for the best wild blueberries. They even grow in Alaska, and in his book “Food,” Waverley Root writes of Alaskan red-backed voles who are “so partial to this fruit that most of them have blue teeth during the berry season.”
In the kitchen, berries are adaptable. Many of them can be used in the same basic recipes.
You can pair a sponge cake equally brilliantly with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries or blueberries, or you can use blueberries and either strawberries or raspberries on a white-iced cake to celebrate July 4 with patriotic colors.
You can cook raspberries, blackberries, or blueberries under your favorite cobbler or crisp topping, and if you have access to the much less common gooseberries or black currants, you can use these, too.
Blueberry muffins have a special place in our hearts, but you can switch in raspberries or blackberries whenever you have them.
Another characteristic of berries is that while they all have their own lovely and distinctive tastes, many of them have flavor partners that make them sing with operatic intensity.
Strawberries and rhubarb are a well-known example. Perhaps their pairing was devised by thrifty folk trying to stretch expensive strawberries with cheap rhubarb, but together they taste of more than the sum of the parts.
Raspberry and peaches also enhance each other. Raspberry sauce is a classic component of Peach Melba. More simply, raspberries scattered over sliced peaches and served with cream or ice cream taste amazing.
Blackberries and apples are another perfect pairing. Mixed in more or less equal amounts in pies, crisps and jam they are delicious.
All these partnerships involve berries and fruits that are ripe at the same time and in the same place. Not so the blueberries — a northern berry — and limes, the citrus fruit that hates cold so much that in Florida it grows only in the hot southernmost tip of the peninsula. But a grating of lime zest gives blueberry muffins an extra lift, and lime-flavored yogurt teams wonderfully with blueberries for breakfast or dessert.
Nuts are yet another flavor partner to berries. Both hazelnuts and almonds are traditional choices with raspberries in European pastries. Walnuts often appear in blueberry breads and muffins. Almonds team with blueberries to make a superlative blueberry pie in Wales. The recipe for this is below, along with a recipe for the perennial favorite Strawberry Shortcake plus other berry recipe to take you through the summer plenty.
For almond lovers this Welsh version of an American favorite has to be the world’s best blueberry pie. The almond top makes this more flavorful than the usual double-crust blueberry pie, and since the blueberries are not cooked before they go in the shell, they stay whole and fresh-tasting.
For the Tart shell:
1 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons sugar
1 stick cold butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk
For the blueberry-almond filling:
3 cups blueberries
1½ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup ground almonds
¼-½ teaspoon (to taste) almond extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
cup sliced almonds (optional)
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and grease an 8-inch pie pan with sloping sides. In a large bowl, mix the flour, cornstarch and sugar.
Add the little bits of butter and rub them into the dry ingredients until you have a mixture that looks like coarse breadcrumbs.
Mix the egg yolk with 2 tablespoons of cold water, pour it into the mixture and with your hands pull it together to form a pastry ball. If it is too dry, add more water a teaspoon at a time until the pastry coheres.
Roll out on a floured surface, then line the pie pan. Cover with foil and about half a cup of dry beans or rice and bake for 18-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and discard the foil and beans or rice.
Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees. Put the berries into the tart shell.
To make the topping, mix the confectioners’ sugar with the ground almonds. (If you cannot buy ground almonds, grind your own by putting 1½ cups of sliced almonds in a food processor bowl fitted with a metal blade. Add a teaspoon of white sugar and process until they look like coarse cornmeal.)
Add the eggs, the almond extract and a tablespoon of water to the almond mixture and stir until everything is combined.
Pour this mixture over the berries. If you are using sliced almonds, sprinkle them on top now.
Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the top is golden with perhaps a few juicy blueberries peeking through. Serve warm.
Raisins are not traditional in strawberry shortcake but they’re included here because they supply nice contrasting chewy moments. Omit them if you prefer.
For the shortcakes:
2 cups plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
6 tablespoon chilled butter
½ cup sugar
½ cup golden or black raisins
1 egg, lightly beaten
About ½ cups milk, preferably sour
For the strawberries:
1 quart ripe local strawberries
2-4 tablespoons sugar, or more or less to taste
8 ounces (half a pint) heavy cream, or more to taste, whipped
2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and cover a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease it. In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder and nutmeg. Cut the butter in small pieces and rub them into the flour.
Stir in the sugar and then the raisins. Make a well in the center and stir in the egg and then the milk to make a stiff dough, adding more milk a tablespoonful at a time as needed to achieve this.
Form into a thick disc at least an inch or more thick. Alternately, divide it into 8 portions and shape each into 2-inch circles.
Place on the baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes for individual shortcakes or 20-25 for one large one.
During the baking or shortly afterwards, wash the strawberries, pat them dry, and take off their little tuft of leaves.
Slice them, leaving smaller ones whole. Sprinkle them with sugar and let them sit for half an hour or more.
Whip the cream into soft peaks.
When the shortcakes are cool, slice them through the center. Spoon some berries along with their juice onto the bottom half; top with cream then the other half of the shortcake. Add a few more berries or berry slices to the plate. Dust with confectioners’ sugar. Serves 6-8
Gelatin desserts were the height of luxury until powdered gelatin was invented in the late nineteenth century. They have lost all their prestige, but they are still cool and satisfying on torrid summer days. And unlike many desserts, they are not loaded with calories.
1 package lime-flavored gelatin dessert
1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
Juice and zest of half a lime
1 cup (or more as needed) blueberries
2 containers (each about 5- ounces) lime yogurt
Make up the gelatin dessert according to the manufacturer’s recommendations (usually by stirring it with 1 cup of boiling water followed by a cup of cold water.)
Divide among 4-5 sherbet glasses or wine glasses or juice glasses, and let set in the fridge for 3-4 hours. (You can leave it for up to 24 hours if more convenient.)
Just before serving, heat the maple syrup with the lime juice over a moderate burner. Off the heat stir in the grated zest then add the blueberries. Roll them around so they are coated with the shiny mixture.
Place a layer of blueberries on top of each of the set gelatins. Reserve a few blueberries for garnish. Top with lime yogurt and garnish with a blueberry or two.
For the filling:
2 large apples such as Cortland, Braeburn or Delicious, peeled, cored and sliced
1 quart blackberries, washed
½ cup sugar or more to taste
1 tablespoon cornstarch
For the Cobbler topping:
1½ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg or teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 stick (4 ounces) butter
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 egg, beaten
cup buttermilk or plain yogurt
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 9-inch square or comparably sized baking dish.
To make the filling put the apples, blackberries, and sugar into a saucepan with 2 tablespoons of water. Cover and cook over low heat for 10 minutes or until the apple slices are tender.
Meanwhile, mix the cornstarch with a tablespoon of water to make a thin paste.
When the berries and apples are cooked, pour a couple of tablespoons of their accumulated juice onto the cornstarch paste, stir, then tip this back into the main mixture in the pan.
Stir for a couple of minutes over low heat until thickened then tip into the prepared baking dish.
To make the topping, mix the flour, nutmeg (or cinnamon) and baking powder.
Cut the butter into several bits and rub them into the flour mixture until it looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in the sugar.
In another bowl mix the egg and buttermilk (or yogurt). Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and stir in the egg mixture. The mixture should not be stiff. Add a little milk or extra buttermilk if necessary to get a dropping consistency.
With a spoon drop this dough in dollops more or less evenly all over the blackberry apple mix in the baking dish. Don’t worry if some remains uncovered; as the cobbler bakes the dough spreads.
Sprinkle the surface with the remaining sugar. Place in the center of the oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until a cocktail stick or skewer poked into the middle comes out clean.
(Note: This cobbler topping can be used with other berry combinations. Try it with raspberries and sliced peaches, or a strawberry-rhubarb mix. Blueberries make great cobblers too).
This is simple and luxurious. Aim for a rosy blossom effect of pale pink and white streaks rather than one uniform color. Eat within an hour or so of preparing — if you can wait that long!
1 cup heavy cream, whipped
2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
1 pint raspberries
1 teaspoon (or more to taste) rosewater or orange flower water
Having beaten the cream take about a third of it and the half the berries and beat them together, adding the confectioner’s sugar and the rosewater as you go. Now fold this into the rest of the cream. Also fold in most of the remaining raspberries, reserving a few of them to garnish each serving. Serve with crisp cookies or a buttery or wafer type. This recipe just serves 4 but it can be expanded as needed.
Berries make excellent jam. You don’t need mountains of them; indeed, it is much easier to work with small amounts as the jam sets faster and retains a fresher flavor and color.
Typically, you need a ratio of a pound of berries or other fruit to a pound of sugar. With raspberries or a combination of apples and blackberries, you can use an ounce or two less sugar as these fruits set easily. Note that slightly under-ripe or just ripe berries set more easily than over-ripe ones.
1 quart strawberries
1 pound (about 6 large stems) rhubarb
4 cups (2 pounds) sugar
1 lemon
Wash the strawberries and cut off the leafy tuft. Halve large berries, but leave small ones whole. Put them in a deep pan. It should be only a quarter or third full when all the strawberries and rhubarb has been added.
Wash the rhubarb stems and cut into 1-inch pieces. Put them in the pan along with a tablespoon or so of water. Cover and set on a low heat. Stir occasionally to move the fruit around and to encourage it to give up its juice, which will happen within 4-5 minutes.
Remove the lid, raise the heat and cook until the mix is very juicy and soft — about another 5 minutes.
Off the heat, stir in the sugar. Return to the heat, and stir until the sugar has dissolved. You can test for this by tapping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. You should not be able to hear or feel any crunch.
Now increase the heat to high and place a small plate in the freezer to later use for setting.
The mixture will now boil rapidly and will rise in the pan. Stir it frequently.
After it has boiled vigorously for about 3 minutes squeeze in the juice of the lemon. (To get as much juice as possible it helps to heat the lemon, either for a few minutes in a low oven or a few seconds in a microwave.)
As the jam thickens, look for a set by letting a spoonful run off a wooden spoon and back into the pan. If it runs off in single drops it’s not ready, but if the drops cohere to form a little dollop — often called a “flake” — this is a sign of setting. To be sure, drop a teaspoonful onto the chilled plate and leave it for a minute. If it has set, it will wrinkle on the surface when you tilt the plate.
Pour the set jam into sterilized jars. (Sterilize them by boiling them in water for 10 minutes and leaving them in the pan as the water cools. When ready to use get them out with clean tongs and wipe dry with a clean towel.)
Cover the filled jars with a towel while they cool, and then put on the lids. This jam keeps well stored in cool place for up to six weeks. You can also can it for longer keeping, but canning causes loss of color and flavor so it’s best to make jam in small amounts that can be used (or given to friends) quite quickly.