Fruit: Luscious Year-Round Dessert

Fruits, nature’s treats, are undoubtedly the oldest type of dessert. A fresh fruit can be a satisfying dessert by itself or you can use a fruit or fruits to make your favorite desserts. The natural sweetness, versatility, flavor and health benefits of fruits make fruit desserts an all-time favorite for many.

Any kind of dessert can include fruits from pies to cakes to ice cream and chocolate. You can use a fresh fruit, a dried fried, fruits in a can, frozen or preserved fruits. The choices are indeed plenty. So, if you are looking for the perfect fruit dessert recipe, the best you can do to narrow down your options is to decide first what kind of dessert you want to prepare and what fruit or fruits are best suited for your dessert. Of course, your choice in fruit will be affected by the season.

Below are some popular fruits that you can use for your fruit dessert recipes and some helpful shopping tips and dessert ideas.

•  Apple is available all year round. Select hard apples with no skin bruises. As you know, there are many desserts you can make with this fruit including the classic Apple Pie to apple tarts, spiced apple crumble, Dutch Apple cake, apple crisps and many others.
• Another fruit that you can get any time of the year is the banana, one of the sweetest and most nutritious fruits. Buy bananas a few days before the day you would be making your dessert so they will be perfectly ripe. Some examples of popular banana fruit desserts are banana smoothies with strawberry and banana chocolate muffins.
• September to March is the best time to buy mangoes. Choose a firm and smooth fruit without bruises on the skin. The fruit should have a pleasant smell with a red or orange-tinted skin. Frozen or chilled mango desserts are deliciously refreshing. Try mango mousse or mango yogurt ice.
• Melon is another delicious fruit great for desserts. Its peak season is summer. A fresh melon should have a smooth dent at the stem end. To enjoy a melon for dessert, simply slice the fruit, peel the skin and remove the seeds and serve as is or make a melon and orange sorbet or a melon crush.
• Another summer fruit is the strawberry. Choose plump and fragrant strawberries with no blemishes and bright fresh-looking caps. Strawberries dipped in whipped cream is already a mouth-watering dessert but other popular dessert recipes that include juicy fruit include strawberry cake, strawberry shortcake, and strawberry pies.

Other favorite fruits for dessert recipes include pears, orange, peaches, plums, cherries, apricots, kiwis, raspberries and pineapples.