It's easy to get overly ambitious when buying fruit in the summer. Look at those gorgeous berries, those plump peaches, those ruby red strawberries! You need them all, now. But sometimes, our eyes are literally bigger than our stomachs. There's good news, though: If you've bought too much fruit to eat and now some are on their last legs, you can bake with them again, instead of throwing them away or composting them. Here are our favorite techniques for doing just that.
Food photography and styling by Liz Neily
Freeze and then chop: Strawberries and cream
One of the easiest ways to extend the shelf life of fresh fruit is to refrigerate it for later – when it comes to strawberries, we cut their leaves, freeze them in a single layer in a sheet pan until hardened, then transfer to a plastic storage bag. (This method prevents them from rising together into a solid block.)
And while frozen fruit can be thawed and used for baking at any time, freezing is actually the first step to one of our favorite berry baking tips: Pulse frozen berries in a food processor it's a quick and easy way to mince them for baking. (See more in our previous blog post: This quick tip makes chopping berries easy.) After the frozen berries are chopped, we stir them into pieces, like these colorful ones Strawberries & Cream Scones.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne; styling prop by Brooke Deonarine
Turn it into quick jam: Cranberry Rye Bars
Faced with an overwhelming amount of shriveled blueberries? Turn them into a quick cooking jam and then turn that jam into these Nuts and Butter Blueberry Rye Bars. Because they are reinforced by maple syruplemon juice and VANILLA, even if your berries are tart or more sweet than sweet, your jam will still be quite tasty. You can also use the method of quick jam with raspberries or blackberries, as we did Coffee cake with raspberry cream.
Food photography and styling by Liz Neily
Mix it up: Banana Cake with Peanut Butter Cream
Of course, everyone knows that if you have brown bananas, you flip them banana bread. But may we suggest an alternative? Slice those bananas, then mix them into the batter for those extra flavors Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting, which take the brown fruits in a more beautiful way. The resulting cupcakes are so good, they might just make you forget about banana bread altogether.
Photography by Mark Weinberg; food styling by Erin McDowell
Roast it: Roasted Strawberry Cream Cheese Rolls
Roasting the fruit concentrates its sweetness and intensifies its flavor, which is especially useful if it loses the fresh flavor that originally made it appealing. In these Cream cheese rolls with baked strawberries, strawberries are baked with sugar at 350°F until they break down and become jam, then turned into a juicy filling for these sweet cream cheese rolls. Here you can easily substitute any other ripe fruit, from peaches, plums and blackberries.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
Cool it down: Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake with Red Fruit Glaze
For a colorful addition to any dessert, bar or quick bread, mix fresh fruit and mix in confectioners' sugar to make a simple pourable glaze. it Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake with Red Fruit Glaze it features a bright glaze made with watermelon or raspberry, and makes a great jumping off point for other fruity iterations.
Rick Holbrook
Grill: Spiced Peach Cakes
If you're firing up the grill (you're probably doing pizza OR pants?), make sure to throw in some halved peaches as well. It's the ideal way to transform soft, soaked fruit into a caramelized, fire-kissed filling for these Spiced Peach Cake. Like baking, grilling concentrates the sweetness of overripe peaches and adds a welcome hint of char to deepen the flavor. Other stone fruits, such as plums or nectarines, can be ripened just as easily.
Photography by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne
Puree it: Berry Mirror Glaze
For a stunning finish to your desserts that are bursting with sweet sweet flavor, whip up a batch of Berry Mirror Glaze. The basis for this glaze is berry puree, which can easily be prepared from fresh fruit by following the advice at the bottom of the recipe page. Simply throw any soft berries into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.
For more fruit baking, check out our collection of Strawberry recipe to embrace summer baking.
Cover photo by Rick Holbrook; food styling by Kaitlin Wayne; styling prop by Brooke Deonarine.
