By Caron Golden

For The Union-Tribune

Imagine you’re 5 years old again and it’s the middle of a hot and humid August. An adult you love gives you a ripe peach, still cold from the fridge, each bite dribbling juice down your chin. It’s sweet and it’s perfect.

All these decades later, it’s August again, and it’s stone fruit season. But there’s so much more we can do with these fruits as home cooks. Peaches, nectarines and other stone fruit are a dream to cook and bake. So I turned to pastry chef Adrian Mendoza for ideas because summer will soon be over, and we’ve got to get in as many as possible before they disappear for the year.

Mendoza has been the executive pastry chef at The University Club atop Symphony Towers for just over a year, after spending time early in his career both at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago and CUT steakhouse in Los Angeles, followed by stints in San Diego County at Searsucker, the Puffer Malarkey Collective restaurant group, Wayfarer Bread & Pastry and, most recently, Urban Kitchen Group. Not only does he design and make desserts for The University Club, but as of this writing he’s about to open a new bakery called Knead on the first floor of the downtown building where The University Club is located. It will have a fast casual menu, but the stars will be the breads and pastry Mendoza and his team will bake on-site.

I spent a recent afternoon with Mendoza in The University Club’s kitchen, and he came up with a few spectacular ways to feature the fruit. His focus was on peaches and nectarines, but the recipes work equally well with plums, apricots and everything in between.

First was a recipe for Peach and Mascarpone Toast. This dish is perfect for brunch, whether you serve it as a main course, part of a buffet or cut it into nibble-size pieces to whet the appetite. Take a bite of this and you get a crazy quilt of textures and flavors — the creaminess of the cheeses, the sweetness of the peach slices and honey, the crunch of smoked almonds, perhaps a bit of heat and the lingering freshness of mint.

The bread is the foundation. Mendoza prefers sourdough but keeps it a day before using it.

“It slices cleaner,” he said.

The prep process is straightforward. The sourdough slices are brushed lightly with olive oil, then grilled — whether you place it on a saute pan, as Mendoza did, or a grill pan.

“You could also use an air fryer or panini press or electric griddle,” he added.

“Grill the bread until it’s a golden brown — crunchy, crispy and little bit doughy inside,” Mendoza explained.

While the bread is toasting, mix together mascarpone and cream cheese with lemon zest, and just a bit of salt and ground black pepper. If you like, you can also sweeten it with a tablespoon of honey. Then slice very ripe peaches — skin on — about 1/8-inch thick. Mendoza suggested using a serrated knife so the peach slices stay intact.

Then put the dish together by first spreading the cheese mixture on the cooled toast. Season with a little salt, then shingle the peach slices on top. Tuck some mint leaves between the peach slices. Then garnish it with rough-chopped, salted smoked almonds, more mint leaves, a drizzle of hot honey and more lemon zest. If spicy’s not your thing, go with regular honey. If you can’t find hot honey (or make it), you can use regular honey and sprinkle some red pepper flakes on the toast.

Next came Peach and Blueberry Scones. Mendoza had some great tips for making a scone that’s less cakelike in texture and instead has a crisp exterior with layers of pastry inside, dotted with fruit. Biting into one gives a nice crunch, followed by the homey sweetness of the peaches and blueberries, complemented by the warmth of ginger and cinnamon.

Mendoza’s first tip is to prepare the dough by hand, not in a mixer or food processor.

“That way you can control how the butter comes together with the dry ingredients,” he noted.

You want cold butter, diced into small pieces. After you mix together the dry ingredients, toss the butter pieces with the dry mixture and lightly rub the butter until you have little chunks about the size of small pecans. Then add the fruit and lightly toss to coat each piece evenly.

The comes the next tip: You’ll combine buttermilk with heavy cream and pour it into the mixture. But instead of stirring, use your hands and gently lift the mixture from the bottom several times to bring it all together. It doesn’t have to be a smooth dough — just barely combined.

Now for tip No. 3: Line the interior of a cake pan with plastic wrap, long enough so you can pull it over the top. Place the dough inside and dust the top with a little flour. Gently press the dough so that it fills the space. Pull the overhanging plastic wrap over the top and refrigerate it for at least half an hour.

At that point you can uncover the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Remove the plastic wrap and slice the dough into eight pieces. They’ll look kind of like cheese wedges, but as they bake they’ll smoosh out a bit and relax. Before baking, brush the tops with cream and then dust with sugar for a nice crunch. Then place on a parchment paper-lined sheet pan and bake.

Finally, there are Nectarine and Blackberry Hand Pies. These hand pies are not like turnovers, and they aren’t made in mini pie plates. They’re more like small galettes. You form a little bowl for the filling by turning up the edges of the dough and crimping them.

Don’t be afraid of making the dough. It’s one of the easiest and best recipes I’ve seen, and you can use it to make full-size pies. Combine flour and salt, then toss in cold butter pieces. Flatten them with your fingers with the dry ingredients, then rub so you have what looks like streusel topping. Add ice-cold water and use your hands to just bring the dough together.

After dividing the dough into 4 pieces, shaping each into a small disc and placing them in the refrigerator wrapped in plastic, you’ll make the filling of nectarine pieces, blackberries, sugar, cardamom, lemon juice and cornstarch. The mixture will release liquid while you roll out the dough. And, yes, Mendoza has a tip for this.

First, roll out each disc one at a time while the others stay in the fridge. It doesn’t have to be a perfect circle, because you’re going to use a 6-inch pie plate to cut a circle. Save the scraps if you want to collect them to roll out a fifth pie crust. Mendoza’s technique to fill the pies is to spoon out about a half cup of just the solid fruit mixture and place it in the center of the dough. Bring up the edge of the dough and start crimping it so from the top it looks like a collection of S’s as you move around the circle. Then add more filling, enough to reach the top of the opening you’ve created — and then add some of the liquid. Place the pies on a sheet pan lined with parchment, chill for 30 minutes, then brush with heavy cream and a dusting of sugar, then bake.

That crust is the essence of pie — it’s got some snap to it but melts in your mouth and the filling is the perfect marriage of summer fruit with the warming comfort of cardamom. Come fall, you can do it again with apples and pears.

Peach and Mascarpone Toast

Makes 2 toasts

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup cream cheese

3/4 cup mascarpone cheese

1 lemon, zested (half for cheese mix, half for garnish)

Flake salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

2 slices sourdough bread (from local bakery or from the store)

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

2 peaches, very ripe

2 tablespoons salted smoked roasted almonds, rough chopped

10 fresh mint leaves (approximately), hand torn

2 tablespoons Mike’s Hot Honey, infused with chiles (or regular honey plus optional red chili flakes)

Creamy mascarpone cheese is spread across the grilled sourdough toast. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Thin slices of ripe peach are shingled across the toast. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

A sprinkle of lemon zest finishes Peach and Mascarpone Toast, which offers many textures and flavors, including creamy mascarpone cheese, sweet peaches and honey, crunchy smoked almonds and fresh mint. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

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Creamy mascarpone cheese is spread across the grilled sourdough toast. (K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

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