I can't bear to cook fruit!

[sasha1]

I have a hard time finding many (any?) instances where cooked fruit is better than raw. When fruit is cooked, it loses all of its lovely tart notes (mostly the fruit I love best has a sweet/tart balance} and its texture turns to mush.

But I know lots of people out there use fruits in cooked form in desserts and other dishes. If you know of a cooked fruit preparation/recipe that rivals the experience of having the same fruit raw, please share. I'd like to widen my perspective a little.

That and I have a tendency to overbuy or overpick the fruits I love when they're available, and then I find myself eating tons and tons of exactly the same thing. Not a terrible problem but now that I'm on my second 20 lb box of nectarines in a month, my husband is asking me to please have a plan for them...

[greygarious]

I agree with you for the most part, except for bananas. I do not care for the mealy texture of a fresh banana and I like the flavor only when the skin is fully yellow but not yet spotting, so there is some tartness remaining. But I LOVE frozen bananas, which are creamy in texture.

I don't think any cooked version of berries or stone fruit compares to fresh but I do enjoy dried stone fruit, which is more reliably flavorful than fresh stone fruit.

[sasha1]

I love frozen bananas too, especially chocolate covered, on a hot day. But they don't taste much like bananas to me. The cold really dampens their banana flavor imo.

I love dried stone fruit too. Do you make your own? That is something I was thinking with all my nectarines, is to dehydrate some in the oven. Normally, I let Trader Joe's do the work.

[greygarious]

I buy from www.apricotking.com. There are several threads on the business. Once you have had their dried Blenheim apricots, Bartlett pears, or white nectarines there is no going back.

[blue room]

It is very *very* hard to cook excellent fruit because you know it doesn't get any better than fresh!

I always figured that's why pies evolved, to use the not-so-nice fruit.

[ipsedixit]

I, too, prefer my fruits fresh.

But that said, I think there are a few that are as tasty cooked as they are fresh. Better? Hard to say. But certainly just as good.

Some off the top of my head.

- Bananas (in bread or roasted)
- Apples (pie)
- Quince and rhubarb (for obvious reasons)

[sasha1]

I'll give it to you on the rhubarb. And I love quince jam - don't know that I've had it fresh.

Apples, that is a hard sell for me. Would you really rather eat apple pie than a fresh off the tree apple? We have a great orchard where we'll pick up to 50 varieties in a couple of hours. Last year we brought home 70 pounds or so! At least 1/2 goes into cider.

Bananas go into bread at my house pretty frequently, but that is a necessity. I don't like to waste, and after the first day or so, they start to get too brown and sweet for my taste. I like them barely this side of ripe.

[bushwickgirl]

You wouldn't be able to eat a fresh quince, they need to be cooked. They have an ability to really make your mouth pucker, similar to eating a very unripe banana. Btw, I like bananas the way you do, with just a hint of green on the peel.

I like fruit raw or cooked. Eating apples are wonderful eaten out of hand but not all apples are good that way. Apple pie, well, what can I say. Besides, I don't think fruit should be cooked to a mushy state, unless you're making applesauce. I like a little bite in my apple pie.

I think apricots are better cooked, it intensified their sweet, without loosing the tart. I've had some pretty bland apricots, and even some very tart ones, that were magically transformed by cooking them; they became balanced. Cooking fruit alters the flavors, but it doesn't make them less of what they are, just different. Cooking tends to concentrate flavor.

It might be that you prefer the texture of raw fruit over cooked. Texture is a personal preference.

I echo ipse: "Certainly just as good."

[hotoynoodle]

just as good here as well, but different. i had some wonderful farm-stand peaches this summer that were perfect for out-of-hand eating, but also made some lovely crisps, with peaches, nectarines and blueberries. we're not really fans of pie around here as much.

in new england, our local fresh fruit season, except for apples and pears, is pretty fleeting, so i'm not often faced with a bounty of the stuff and find myself making do.

my favorite way to eat apricots is in tarte tatin.

in the winter, i frequently make pear cakes, especially with pears that are heading south or perhaps too bland to eat out of hand. i like desserts like that since the visual integrity doesn't matter.

[ipsedixit]

bushwickgirl,

Re: apricots. I think the bland ones are really an affectation of supermarket fruits. Now that I have an apricot tree I haven't had to buy apricots in years (Blenheims the exception). And I swear, apricots picked directly from the tree are about as intensely sweet as anything you can imagine.

[bushwickgirl]

My experience as well, supermarket, blah; we had a tree in my last neighborhood, in a vest pocket garden next to my building in BK, that produced copious amounts of very intense 'cots that made the most wonderful eating and jam; with very little sugar needed.

Sadly, the tree blew over in a windstorm and passed away.

[sasha1]

Come to think of it, I have a dynamite recipe for an apricot tart that I love from Bon Appetit. It is apricot almond, but we have a nut allergy in the family, so I just omit the almond. It is a straight up sweet dough, topped w/apricot halves, glazed with melted apricot jam, and baked. Delicious!

So, for those who enjoy cooked fruit, it sounds like you mostly use not so fantastic or past prime fruit and put it in pies and cobblers?

I guess my mental block is taking fresh, lovely fruit and cooking it. I can absolutely see the value proposition in cooking fruit that has passed...