Summer doesn't often inspire us to crank up the oven. But some dishes can make it worth enduring the heat.

Berries and peaches light up with just a touch of heat, and tomatoes become even sweeter. And what picnic would be complete without a juicy pie or some big, chunky cookies?

To help you along, a few new cookbooks show you how to make the most of summer's bounty.

"The Sono Baking Company Cookbook," for example, folds plump summer blueberries into tender, sour cream muffins. And chunky, chocolate-stuffed kitchen sink cookies practically scream "picnic." But it's really the book's savories that set it apart.

Baker John Barricelli nestles sweet kernels of corn against luscious crabmeat in a decadent French tart, and creates a Jarlsberg-topped cobbler of red, yellow and orange cherry tomatoes. If you live in a place where leeks and asparagus are still popping, show them off in his custardy leek, asparagus and corn tart.

Vegetarian cooking guru Deborah Madison also has worked as a pastry chef. And she has put her knowledge to good use in "Seasonal Fruit Desserts," a book stocked with no-fuss desserts that exploit summer's just-from-the-farm sweetness.

"Fruit lends itself to improvisation," she says. "If it's really delicious to start with it gives you so many possibilities."

Some of her simplest desserts require no baking at all: plums are gently sauteed with a touch of cardamom, while the hollows of fat summer melons are filled with berries, wine and herbs. If you do turn on the oven, a berry and peach cobbler gets crunch from corn flour, and easy folded pies are filled with grapes or mulberries, blackberries and other summer treats. A right-side-up cake piled with fresh fruit and just a touch of butter offers a lighter take on the traditional buttery-sweet upside down cake.

David Lebovitz's "Ready for Dessert" promises visceral satisfaction starting with the cover, which invites you to drag a greedy finger through a cake's thick chocolate icing. Inside, almond cookies become cobbler crusts and Guinness-spiked gingerbread gets topped with lime frosting.

Even classics get just a little extra kick, like a nectarine-raspberry upside-down cake with a gingerbread base. For those days when peaches practically ooze their juice at the farm stand, Lebovitz proposes peach mascarpone semifreddo, a frozen peaches-and-cream given a subtle crunch by crushed amaretti cookies.