Summer Here, Berries

Getting fresh, local berries from the farmers market is one of summer’s pure delights. Besides being the perfect snack, nabbing large quantities of a variety of berries promotes exploration in baking with berries! With blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries on hand, I wanted to utilize as many as I can before the mold beats me to the punch. We have the same taste.

I made a crust for a cooked fruit tart by eye, which is something I don’t often do. Precision is one of the reasons why I love baking. I ground up some of the things in the pantry that were hanging around too long–a bag of raw flax crackers, pepitas and their more scantily-clad sibling, the sunflower seed– then added a generous squirt of agave nectar and some whole wheat flour. Then I added melted (the weather made this easy) coconut oil until I had a crust texture. Easy, peasy.

Since this was to be a cooked fruit tart, I used a ripe banana that had been hanging around. There is nothing I love more in a dessert than hot banana. Yum! I lined the crust with the beautiful blackberries, aligning my tart with my penchant for neat spatial organization. Now we’re cooking with neuroses!

After a sprinkling of sugar I constructed layer two: strawberry and blueberry.

I cooked it until I smelled it, about 20 minutes.

I couldn’t resist having some warm. It was divine. It would have been perfect with ice cream.

This is the kind of dessert that is delicious hot or cold and only gets better with time. Here’s to a yummy way to use a lot of berries.