Book excerpt: A collection of simple recipes that will have you baking crowd-pleasing desserts with the freshest fruits all year long. Most fruit desserts, including the ones in this book, offer the benefit of being easy to make. They’re also good examples of the culinary principle that if you start with the finest ingredients and prepare them in ways that highlight their natural qualities, you’ll get outstanding results. With this easy-to-follow collection of recipes you’ll be churning out delicious fruit desserts year round. Battle the transitional temperatures of spring with strawberry-rhubarb coffee cake, raspberry gratin, gingered rhubarb crisp or an apricot-pistachio tart. They’ll be no suffering in the summer heat with little plum galettes, blueberry-cream cheese custard pie, black forest cake with fresh cherries, plum buckle or sour cherry pie. The arrival of fall may leave you pining for vacation days but with the help of roasted grape tartlets, quince tea cake, fresh fig galette, pumpkin-ginger cheesecake and pear-walnut sticky cake you won’t be pining for long. Finally, winter’s chill won’t leave slim pickings with options like cranberry-pecan pie, pineapple upside-down skillet cake, pumpkin moon pies with orange cream and chocolate-banana bread pudding. Williams-Sonoma Luscious Fruit Desserts also features a section on basic baking techniques, as well as full-color photos throughout.