Berry

The texture of this cake is that of angel food cake, but made with whole grains, it has more substance than the white version.

This is a special vegan cake that’s an impressive dessert for dinner guests. The custard and fruit make a delightful topping that’s fat-free and looks like you toiled for hours over it.

The filling for these crêpes is made with mirin, a Japanese cooking wine made from sweet brown rice. You can find it at health food stores, Asian food stores, and possibly your local supermarket. This is a fabulous vegan dish, ideal for brunch.

These are some of my favorite muffins. The quinoa flour and cornmeal give them a beautiful golden color and a nice texture, a perfect combination with the juicy blueberries.

Cranberry and orange is a classic, tangy flavor combination. Stock up and freeze fresh cranberries when in season for baking throughout the year. For a sweet and chewy alternative, try fruit-sweetened dried cranberries, which are similar to raisins.

This recipe is a little like karaoke: not exactly the original, but still a a lot of fun, and without all the production. One of my fondest kitchen memories is making the dessert or sweet topping that the French call sabayon and the Italians call zabaglione. A combination of whisked egg yolks, marsala wine, and sugar, it’s a high-wire act that has to go right from the heat to the plate. Get it right, and it’s a froth of pure delight. Put it under the flame for a few seconds too long, and you’re toast. This immensely more healthful version, which features mango and coconut, provides a similarly flavorful lightness, minus the need for perfectly timed kitchen pyrotechnics. It’s great alone, or serve it drizzled over berries or rice pudding.

Blueberries contain lots of pectin, which helps soothe the stomach, and one of their active compounds can help prevent cancer cells from getting nourishment.

A lot of people wonder why adding healthy items like flaxseeds to a decent-tasting smoothie destroys the taste. The answer is that the smoothie recipe didn’t take into account the items you’d want to add. The normal fix is to add a ton of sweetener, but I don’t agree with that approach, especially in recipes for cancer patients. But the berry blast of this smoothie plays well with the vital flax and whey. The abundant antioxidants make this smoothie one for the books.

Old-fashioned shortcake is made with biscuit dough, not cake batter. This makes a great fresh dessert or a fancy weekend breakfast. You eat it warm, straight from the oven! And the Vegan Whipped Topping is an extra-special treat. I was unable to find a dairy-free, soy-free whipped topping, so I whipped up my own! Use it anywhere you’d use whipped cream.

I know they say apple pie is about as American as you can get, but I give that moniker to blueberry pie instead. When I think of pie, I think summertime and blueberries! Every summer, we visit my father in western Massachusetts and go to a big field with the most prolific old blueberry bushes you’ve ever seen, and fill our buckets with heaping cups of blueberries. We eat a lot of them right then and there while picking, but the rest get made into pancakes, and best of all, baked up into pie!

As a Cape Codder, I’m crazy about cranberries. And “apple” was my son Lennon’s first word, so you know how we feel about them in our house! This pie is the perfect combination of tart and sweet. It is an ideal dessert to end any holiday meal. It is extremely pretty, with its tiers of fruit and deep golden crust. Look for firm, sweet apples to balance the tartness of the cranberries. I like Braeburn, Fuji, or Jonagold. To make this dessert completely refined sugar–free, double the proportions for the Single Flaky Sucanat Pie Crust recipe (page 130) and roll out as instructed below.

There is nothing more delicious than custard cream and fresh berries, as far as I’m concerned. I could eat it with a spoon, morning, noon, and night. This light, fresh tart is easy to make and a favorite with all ages. My kids adore the shortbread crust, because it tastes like cookies and it’s heaped with antioxidant-rich berries, making it rather virtuous (well, sort of . . .).

This moist, buttery coffee cake with its crisp, cinnamon-sugar topping is based on an old fashioned recipe from the 1950s, called Blueberry Boy Bait, a coffee cake named for the effect it had on teenage boys. My boys aren’t teens yet, but this bait works for them. They’ll gobble it up in one day—with not a crumb left over.

This is a simple, elegant, not-too-sweet dessert that you can whip up in no time. I recommend using Bosc or Anjou pears in this recipe, because they hold their shape when baked.

This rustic free-form tart is great with raspberries, but you can just as easily substitute blueberries or blackberries. The cornmeal gives the crust a slightly crunchy texture, which complements the berries beautifully.

This healthy crisp lasts well for several days (covered) on the counter. I’ll often make one, serve it for dessert, and then dig in again the following morning for a gorgeous berry breakfast. It’s made with natural unrefined sweeteners that are low on the glycemic index, and the berries and oats make for a nutritious, antioxidant-rich, fiber-packed treat. Fresh berries work best for this; if using frozen berries, defrost them for about 45 minutes and drain off any liquid that collects.

Peaches and blueberries make a perfect pairing. Not only are they in season together, but their colors and flavors are also the ideal complement.

Blackberries are so tasty, and so good for you! Packed full of fiber and antioxidants, they are definitely a “superfood.” This dessert is tart and sweet. If you like it more tart, add another tablespoon of lime juice.

These tasty, not-too-sweet muffins are packed with protein-rich quinoa and plenty of antioxidant-rich fruit. Add a glass of calcium-enriched OJ or rice milk, and you have a complete breakfast.

Millet adds nice texture to this traditional favorite. Blueberry muffins are always a crowd pleaser. Bake up a big batch, store them in the freezer, and you’ll always have breakfast on hand.