Quick

As a grilled-food guy, R. B. loves red Zinfandel and Côtes du Rhone. Mixed with fresh fruit and carbonation, these barbecue-friendly reds really come to life. Sweeten with sugar if you like.

When our late summer/fall cheater barbecue party guests deserve something fancier than sliced watermelon, we serve Swanky Figs. Like a good barbecue sauce, this dessert demonstrates the appeal of yin/yang balance—salty sharp blue cheese, creamy rich mascarpone, sweet honey, and tannic toasty walnuts. Go ahead and broil the figs early in the day. After dinner, discreetly step into the kitchen and reappear minutes later with a drop-dead platter of edible jewels.

There’s no easier way to toast a marshmallow than by cheating with bottled smoke. This recipe takes a jar of old-school marshmallow cream blended with heavy cream, real vanilla, and smoke to make a modern miracle. Use it as you would any vanilla sauce with fresh fruits or berries, over ice cream, or in tandem with our cheater chocolate and caramel smoked dessert sauces.

Charred with butter and sugar, Broiled Peaches are a summertime romantic dinner-for-two essential in R. B.’s little black cookbook. Guys who lack strong dessert skills can relax. Broil the peaches early, set them aside at room temp, and assemble the dessert when ready to serve. R. B. likes his peaches with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a splash of Amaretto, Smoky Caramel Sauce (page 198), and toasted sliced almonds on top. Substitute fruits abound for this dish—you can butter, sugar, and broil banana halves, fresh pineapple spears, seeded melon wedges, and pitted and halved plums. We use whatever is in season. They all taste great with any of our cheater smoked dessert sauces.

Homemade brownies are a good reminder that easy baking doesn’t always involve a packaged mix or an electric mixer. These brownies require only a saucepan for melting the butter and chocolate. Once that’s taken care of, stir in the rest of the ingredients and the batter is ready. That’s it. The texture of these falls in the middle between the dense fudgy style and taller, cakier brownies. Min always takes her mother’s advice and sprinkles the nuts on top so they’ll toast in the oven. A big pan of brownies can do anything. Pass a platter after a casual barbecue blow-out or dress them up with any or all three of the cheater smoked dessert sauces (pages 197 to 199) and ice cream.

Surprise, a touch of bottled smoke is the easy route to burnt sugar flavor in caramel sauce. This melt-and-stir cheater sauce eliminates the intimidating and time-consuming step of caramelizing sugar—cooking white sugar slowly in a skillet until it turns toasty brown.

Muffin-cup shortcakes made with self-rising flour turn shortcake biscuits into fast stir-up muffins. The muffins retain the biscuit qualities essential for shortcake—a crisp outer crust and a soft pillowy center that can hold up to a drenching of sweet fruit. Min sprinkles the muffin tops with fancy coarse sugar before baking because it looks pastry chef cool and has a nice crunch. Strawberries are traditional and terrific, of course, but not the only fruit to use. We spoon on any fruit that’s affordable, looks great, and is in season. Any berries or mix of berries and peaches are our summer favorites. In the winter we’ve made shortcake with sliced bananas, Smoky Caramel Sauce (page 198), and whipped cream.