When all kinds of fruits come into season at around the same time, I end up trying to cram all kinds of things into each dish I make. It takes a lot of editing to pick out one or two fruits to include in the final result, but it’s necessary editing as no one really wants fruit salad muffins regardless of how delicious a fruit salad is. After all, you really want to be able to taste the individual fruit flavors in your finished dish.

These muffins got edited down to blueberries and apricots, inspired by some muffins I had a while back at Starbucks that incorporated the same fruits. The blueberries add lots of flavor, as you might expect, and the apricots add both a honey-like floral flavor and a lot of moisture. I used both fresh blueberries and fresh apricots for these muffins. You can use fresh or frozen blueberries for these muffins. Frozen apricots would work, but they’re hard to find unless you’ve frozen them yourself during the peak of their season. Another advantage to the fresh apricots is that you cane make some small slices to garnish the tops of the muffins.

The muffins are just dense enough to hold up all the fruit in the batter, but are still very moist and tender. The bread part of the muffin has a good buttermilk flavor to it, but the real flavor comes from all that fruit. Blueberries and apricots work great together, and even though they both contribute moisture to the cupcakes, neither one is so moist that they make the muffins soggy or wet at all. They’re very low in fat, although there is a fair amount of sugar in them, so they don’t feel too indulgent or too heavy in your stomach.
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One of the most important pieces of kitchen equipment to have on hand during the summer - excluding a working refrigerator/freezer - is probablyt an ice cream scoop. That may be a big of an exaggeration, but when the weather is really hot, ice cream is a fantastic way to cool down quickly. A few months ago, Cook’s Illustrated ran a review of ice cream scoops to see which did the best job of delivering nice-looking scoops with the minimum of fuss.

They tested seven different brands for ease of use, comfort and appearance of the resulting ice cream scoop. They actually had to eliminate a lot of models based on the last category, either because the shape of the scoop was off or because the ice cream stuck so badly that there was little chance of getting a round scoop. Three brands emerged with high marks: the Rösle Ice Cream Scoop was the top finisher, easy to use and with camera-ready scoops, followed by the Zeroll Original Ice Cream Scoop (which I have and have always had great results with) and the Fantes Stainless Portion Scoop #16 (also known as a 1/4 cup scoop). The OXO i-Series Ice Cream Scoop and the KitchenAid Ice Cream Scoop were recommended with reservations, as the OXO made oblong scoops instead of round and the KitchenAid was very bulky. Not recommended were the Van Vacter Ice Cream Knife and the Tovolo Standz Ice Cream Scoop.

Although not inluded in the CI review, I still really like the ice cream scoop & stack from Cuisipro, which creates cylindrical “scoops” that are easy to pile into a cone. The shape of the ice cream has a little bit of a nostalgic feel for me, and it works qell after being dipped in hot water to ensure that the plunger will easily be able to push out the ice cream from the scoop.

When you stick to a holiday’s “theme” colors - red and green for Christmas, pink and red for Valentine’s Day - it makes it much easier to come up with treats to make in celebration. These Red, White and Blue Chocolate Dipped Strawberries incorporate both the colors of the 4th of July holiday and fresh, in-season strawberries. They look extremely patriotic, as far as strawberries go, and taste like summer.

Just like any other chocolate-dipped strawberries, the method for making these is very easy. There is only one additional step: dip the tips of the strawberries into some blue sprinkles or blue sanding sugar once they have been dipped into the chocolate. Blue sprinkles or jimmies have a bold color to them and look cute on the strawberries, but blue sanding sugar, which I used for the strawberries here, gives the berries a little bit of a sparkle. The color of the sprinkles will not stand out well on milk or dark chocolate, and you won’t get the same visual effect as you do with white chocolate. That said, if you really want to incorporate milk or dark chocolate, just double dip the berries first into the chocolate of your choice, let that layer set up, and continue on with the white chocolate and sprinkles.

Store the berries in the refrigerator until you’re ready to eat them, as white chocolate is a little more heat-sensitive than other chocolates. The berries are best within a day or two of being made.
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Grilling is a great way to feed a crowd. It’s done outdoors, so it’s easy to be social while you work, and you can fit a lot more food onto a barbecue than you can fit into a frying pan on the stove. The hardest part about grilling is getting the timing down. This isn’t a big deal for chicken, which really needs to be well-done no matter what, or for long-cooking items like ribs, but it can be a big deal for burgers when people want their meat cooked to different levels of “doneness.” Hand-shaped burgers are different sizes, different thicknesses, and need vastly different cooking times. It’s frustrating for the griller and the diner when the burgers are under or over cooked.

The only way to minimize the problem is to standardize the burger patty sizes so that you will know exactly how long they need to cook. There are lots of cookie cutter-like gadgets that do this, but the Kitchenart Adjust-A-Burger lets you control the size and weight of your burger a little more easily. It works just like the Adjust-A-Cup measuring cups, where you press your meat into the cup after setting it at the size you want, then push up on the plunger to eject the burger. The meat shouldn’t be packed in too tightly, as that can have a negative impact on the texture of the burger, but it’s pretty easy to avoid this issue with this gadget, since you really don’t have to handle the meat all that much. The Adjust-a-Burger makes 1/4, 1/3 and 1/2-lb burgers. There is a mini version that makes 1, 2 and 3-oz sliders, as well.

Ever since I had my first one, sitting in front of a roaring campfire with a semi-clean stick skewered with lots of toasting marshmallows, I have been a big fan of s’mores. If I could go back in time, only thing I’d do differently now is to use a really clean skewer for my marshmallows, but when you’re camping and very young, you don’t tend to think about those things. I still like classic s’mores made with squares of milk chocolate, store bought graham crackers and jet puffed marshmallows. Now that my culinary skills are a little improved, however, I do like to experiment a little bit and see how I can get even more flavor out of my s’mores. Homemade graham crackers and homemade marshmallows are great examples of small changes. A big change is to turn a simple s’more into a S’mores Cake.

You don’t need a campfire for this cake, but you do need an oven. It’s a graham cracker cake, layered with marshmallow creme and milk chocolate frosting. The cake is made with graham cracker crumbs where you might otherwise use all purpose flour, and is leavened with both baking powder and egg whites that have been beaten to soft peaks. The finished cake is light in texture, but has a ton of graham cracker flavor. It is very moist, so it will crack if it isn’t handled with care when you’re stacking up the layers.

The milk chocolate frosting - chosen because the typical s’more uses milk chocolate - is almost like a milk chocolate ganache. It is made with chocolate, half and half and butter. The thing that differentiates it is that I included a little bit of corn syrup, which gives it a shiny look and makes it very easy to work with. The marshmallow creme is just store-bought marshmallow creme. It spreads onto the cake easily and stays nice and soft, making the cake easy to cut and serve.

One final note: a fire pit makes a great backdrop for a photo of a S’mores cake, but the cake really isn’t designed to hold up to heat of any kind. Both the frosting and the marshmallow creme are a little heat-sensitive. Unless it’s a cold day, you can - and should - store this cake in the fridge to keep everything intact. The cake will stay moist and tender even after a couple of days in the fridge. But if you don’t mind a melty, slightly messy cake that is like a real s’more, than by all means, go for the fire.

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• Today is Canada Day, and in tribute, Dinner with Julie baked some Maple Cupcakes. Maple cupcakes are a fitting treat for the holiday because maple syrup is so closely associated with Canada and Canadian foods. The cupcakes have quite a bit of maple syrup in the cake itself, and are topped off with a decadent maple syrup frosting. If you want to take the maple flavor even further, try to track down some maple sugar to replace the regular sugar called for in the recipe.
• Both cheesecakes and apple pie are staples of American dessert menus, but there is absolutely no reason that the two couldn’t be combined into one rich, creamy, fruit-filled dessert, like the Brown Sugar Apple Cheesecake at Eat Me Delicious. This cheesecake has a gingersnap crust, made with all the usual apple pie spices, and is filled with a layer of light-sauteed apples. Although cream cheese isn’t typically found in apple pies, all the flavors of regular apple pie can be found in this cheesecake, making it novel and familiar at the same time.
• Tomatoes are in season and very plentiful. When you have good, fresh tomatoes, you probably want to enjoy them as close to their natural state as possible. Ezra Pound Cake’s Fresh Tomato Tart with a Basil-Garlic Crust is a good way to do that, and a nice change from making just another salad. The tart is filled with a simple mixture of mozzarella, tomatoes and olive oil. The filling sits in a savory crust flavored with fresh basil and garlic.
• The Apple Popovers from The Way It Crumbles are a twist on apple pie that I haven’t seen before! For this recipe, apples are diced up and caramelized on the stovetop with sugar and butter. The apple mixture is then ladled into the center muffin cups already filled with popover batter. When the popovers bake, they form a light “crust” around the apple mixture and leave you with a treat that could be served for dessert, breakfast or just eaten as a snack. Don’t forget the ice cream if you’re looking to make them a little more like regular apple pie!
• When I think of whoopie pies, I tend to think of chocolate cookies with a cream filling. Sweet Charity Pie’s Lemon Whoopie Pies may not be perfectly traditional in that respect, but they certainly sound like a refreshing change of pace. The cookies are soft, almost cake-like, and are packed with lemon zest. The cream cheese filling also has more lemon juice and zest in it to give the cookies a bright flavor. These keep well and travel easily, so they’re a great choice for summer barbecues and parties.