Thursday, December 29, 2011

Pears, Pears Everywhere

I've baked two lovely treats from Dorie Greenspan's Baking to use up a bunch of fat, juicy pears that my bro-in-law sent us. I've done pretty well--I only have five left. Woot!

First up, Brown Sugar Bundt Cake (pg 179). I'm glad I looked pears up in the index, because they're buried in the ingredient list, so I wouldn't have noticed them otherwise. This is a moist, tender cake. It's lightly sweet, and the pears retain their flavor. My only complaint is the prunes. I like prunes, but they were aggressive here, because all the other flavors are subtle. Next time, I'll use apricots or dates instead of prunes. 

Conclusion: Liked it, and it's Charlie-Approved. I popped it in the freezer, and am happy that it's there.

As a safeguard against my potentially dreadful goose pie (which actually turned out to be pretty good. Huzzah!!), and because I had pie crust in the freezer, I made Fold-Over Pear Torte (pg 348). A pie crust is pressed into a spring form pan. The edges are supposed to be higher than I managed to get them. Woops. Diced pears, diced dried apricots, walnuts, and lemon zest/juice are mixed together, then piled in the crust. A very wet batter (custard??) is poured in, then the sides of the crust are crimped over.

All our rum was gone (egg nog), so I couldn't include it. It would have been a nice addition to the vanilla and almond extract in the batter.

I asked Matt why he was making weird faces. He said he was trying to decide if he liked it. He landed on yes, and had a second slice.

Conclusion: Liked it. I suspect it was supposed to bake a little longer. It was very wet. Or maybe that's just the nature of pears. Not sure.

2 comments:

  1. These are two great looking pear Desserts. I chose the foldover pear torte for TWD and loved it. Pears are fab in baked goods.

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  2. Yum! Both desserts look delicious. I'll have to give these two recipes another look in Baking!

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