Some apples turn to sauce when cooked, some remain firm. My somewhat limited experience shows that this can be true of other species and also affected by whether you pick them firm-ripe or already partially softened on the tree.
This year I realized that prune plums that are allowed to ripen to max sweetness and turn amber will automatically turn into sauce when cooked, even when still reasonably firm when harvested. These are the best plums for fresh eating to my palate because off the tree they can be just firm enough not to be mushy and extremely sweet and high flavored while those that may be impossible to ripen to that point and drop off the tree before hand are plums that will stay firm even when cooked. Empress, Stanley and Autumn Sweet seem to fall in the latter category, while Valor, Victory, and Castleton in the former. Of course the varieties that can ripen up to world class fresh eating plums should also perform well at holding texture if picked at the right time. .
Japanese plums I know less about for cooking, but I do know that the most beautiful sauce I’ve ever seen can be made out of Ruby Queen plums. If this was widely known to chefs, I’m sure it would be immensely popular in the luxury restaurant industry.
If you want to pull peaches or nectarines out of your freezer that hold some firmness while cooking, you obviously cannot allow them to get soft and you are best served to figure out when they are both firm and at nearly max sweetness when harvesting them for freezer storage and future cooking. I believe Nectarines are superior for this purpose than peaches as a general rule, if only because they develop higher brix at any given state of ripeness. Forget about using low-acid strains, as far as I’m concerned, if you plan to use them for culinary purposes.
I failed to mention that saucy combined with firm is the most pleasing thing in many recipes, as was noted on the apples for baking topic.
Most apricots make really great sauce, which I find invaluable, but Tomcot stays firm, as grown here. I’ve never taken advantage of that trait- I use most of my cot harvest as a base sauce with other fruit. Tomcot is also less sweet than other cots I grow.
I try to freeze enough cots, nects, blueberries and plums to assure fruit into the following spring- along with the apples I have in a huge freezerless fridge I keep in the cool basement of my house. .
I have made cherry clafoutis and a pear galette before - I wish I remembered what variety of the fruits I used. All I know is they came from a grocery store.
Many of you have enjoyed a peach cobbler or pie:) now for those in the southern tropics such a treat is not an option. Substitute mango for peach. OMG:)
I usually cut down sugar or replace with some stevia. With the natural sugar in some fruit, like mangoes, you may opt to skip adding. Its all about your personal health and preferences:)
Maybe a little weird, but I like to make cranberry pie on occasion. (Basically, just home-made cranberry sauce baked in a pie crust.) Makes for a nice combo with tart sauce, buttery crust, and vanilla ice cream.
I would have said Blueberry. But the Blueberry industry is in huge flux here. This is Rabbiteye land. Which means huge plantings often decades old. Great quality and flavor; but averse to new mechanical harvesting. One grower in our town has one of these grand old plantings. They are trialling Yadkin to supplement their superb Bluebelle that dominates his crop. The two mixed together make a remarkable excellent flavor pie with big juicy sweet explosions in it from the Bluebelle.
Our new Blueberry farm neighbor is 100% mecha pick. That they house 300 workers to work the plantings full time gives an idea of the size of the farm. Its huge.