This is going to become your go to Summer dessert! It is simple, delicious and best part is you can use whatever fruit you have on hand. You can even use fruit that is about to go bad and you need to use it up quick. The whole family will love this dessert.
Bread or Pound Cake?
In every recipe I have ever seen for any kind of fruit bruschetta, they are still using Italian bread or some type of crusty bread for the crostini. I am sure it wonderful, however, I wanted something that was more dessert-like than just still using regular crostini. So, I use pound cake in mine. Pound cake grills up beautifully, it gets a magical crust when you brush it with the vanilla butter. It holds its own and stands up really nice to the mascarpone and fruit. Let’s face it, cake is dessert, not bread, right?
Butter versus oil
Instead of using olive oil to brush on your “crostini” whether you use bread or pound cake; I think it is better to brush your bread with butter. I love using this mix of melted butter, just a little bit of sugar and vanilla bean paste. It is soooo delicious.
Chef’s Tip- Using herbs in desserts is awesome! No matter what fruits you are using, you can mix and match the herbs that go best with them. I used white nectarines, cherries and strawberries. So, for the herbs I did a basil and mint mix. Yet, you can do rosemary or thyme or even cilantro if you are using other fruits or just one fruit to bring out more of the flavor. I suggest that if you are going to do rosemary or thyme, you grind it up with the sugar so that you are not biting into a big piece of that tough herb.
Grilled Fruit Bruschetta
Ingredients
- 1 frozen pound cake
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1-2 tablespoons vanilla bean paste if you do not have vanilla bean paste, you can use a vanilla bean striped and mixed with vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup cherries pitted
- 3 white nectarines pit removed and cut into quarters
- 4 oz ripe strawberries top removed and sliced in half
- 1 cup mascarpone cheese
- 2 tablespoons honey
- small bunch mint roughly chopped
- small bunch basil roughly chopped
Instructions
- Preheat your grill to 400 degrees. Cut the pound cake into 8 slices. Melt the butter and mix it with the vanilla bean paste and sugar. Brush half of the mixture over both sides of the pound cake.
- Place the pound cake and the fruit on to the grill, brush the fruit with the remaining melted butter mixture and grill about 2-3 minutes on each side. Make sure your cake does not burn.
- Once you have gotten grill marks and the fruit has softened it is ready.
- Give the fruit a rough chop to dice it down a bit and in a bowl toss it with the chopped herbs.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the mascarpone cheese and the honey.
- To assemble the bruschetta, spread some of the mascarpone mixture onto the pound cakes. Then top with the fruit mixture and garnish with any additional herbs. ENJOY!
