Fruit

When fresh peaches are in season and ripe, this is a wonderful way to serve them.

Sometimes it’s a case of “the simpler the better.” Here, you bake apples in a rich, buttery caramel sauce and it doesn’t take much time to get it all together, either.

Cooked bananas are a relative rarity, the New Orleans classic Bananas Foster being one exception. The caramel sauce is simple to make by just boiling the sugar and the sauce can be made hours in advance. The bananas are best served hot from the oven. If macadamia nuts are a bit rich for you, just leave them out, although they are a great embellishment.

Perfect for autumn holiday meals, this pie is best served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

An apple pie “made from scratch” has no competition from store-bought pies. Here’s the basic recipe with some favorite variations. To bake a frozen apple pie, see the chart. Convection-baked pies cook in about one-third less time.

Chewy with nuts, coconut, dried fruit, and chocolate chips. Using my quick one-bowl method, you can stir up the cookie dough in the same time it takes for the oven to preheat.

These are shaped rather than rolled cookies. To shape even-sized cookies it is helpful to use a #40 ice cream scoop that measures exactly 1 tablespoon of dough. Arrange the oven racks so they are evenly spaced. This works best for most cookies and multiple pans will bake evenly at the same time.

This is a basic recipe for a simple-to-make jelly roll. Instead of spreading the cake with jelly, you can spread it with whipped cream and sprinkle with fresh berries before you roll up the cake. Another option is to substitute a rich chocolate ganache and roll up the cake before the ganache sets.

Long, slow baking in the convection oven produces a beautiful cake, one that has a silky texture. A bit of flour in the mixture makes the cake easier to cut. This makes a large cheesecake, ideal for a party. Top it with fresh berries in season or use one of the variations below.

This moist, even-textured cake is wonderful served plain with a cup of herbal tea. When raspberries are in season, top slices with the berries. To gild the lily, add a dollop of whipped cream.

This old-fashioned cake is bathed in an orange syrup when it is still hot from the oven.

Eggs, sugar, and flour in equal measure are the basis of this simple cake, which bakes in just 20 minutes and can be filled with fruit or berries in season.

Dried cranberries, widely available today, fleck the texture of this bread. If you use fresh berries that were frozen, be sure they are at room temperature because frozen berries affect the baking time. Toast the walnuts while preheating the oven.

Whenever bananas get a bit too ripe, I bake banana nut bread and keep a few loaves in the freezer. Whole wheat flour enhances the nuttiness of the loaves. Baking time in the convection oven is reduced by 10 to 15 minutes for either size loaf.

This will impress your guests when you want something extra special to serve for brunch on a summer morning during blueberry season. I sometimes make an extra cake just for backup and keep it well wrapped in a round metal tin in the freezer.

Use flavorful, tart apples for this cake for the best flavor. Baked on the convection bake mode, it bakes considerably faster than in a conventional oven.

Muffins used to be a healthy breakfast option, but in recent years they have become jumbo sources of fats and sugar. There’s no reason why a medium muffin shouldn’t be a reliable breakfast staple. Here’s a basic recipe that’s relatively low in butter and sugar but still completely satisfying. Once you master (and memorize) the basic formula, you can create anything you desire. Six variations follow. Rather than reduce the oven temperature here, I prefer to keep it the same as in the conventional oven, but reduce the baking time so you can bake them even on a workday morning.

There isn’t much difference in baking time between convection and regular ovens when you bake scones, only 5 to 10 minutes. The difference is in the wonderful texture, moist tender crumb, and golden, delicate crust that you can expect from the convection oven.

Cinnamon perfumes the air as this loaf bakes. This not-too-sweet wheat bread is a perfect match for aged sharp Cheddar. This dense loaf bakes beautifully in the convection oven at a lower temperature than you’d expect.

This is a favorite bread, especially in the Midwest, where many people have Scandinavian roots.