“And with Yeats you lean against a broken pear tree,
the day hooded by low clouds.” ~William Collins
The last week has gone in some kind of daze with the kids home all the time because of an Autumn break. (Autumn never actually got here by the way). Then it was time for the 13 year old to leave on her annual camping trip to the foothills of the Himalayas, so we spent 2 days shopping for unnecessary items of little or no consequence. I shall attempt to share some pictures with you when she gets back if they are scenic and ‘shareable’. Teen pictures have a different flavour altogether, or so I have learnt, with weird angles and are very people centric!!
Also got truly bitten by many ‘blocks’ –baking block, writers block, bloggers block…and twitter block over the past few days. My good friend Peter @ Kalofogas managed to tempt me ‘out of the gutter’ onhump day and sorta dragged me back on my feet. Ilvaand I discovered we were on the same boat…you know what we mean. Last night I was in the dumps, and so was she. She suggested on twitter that we get back some kind of mac thingy going again to boost our flailing spirits to get our happy mojo back! Good idea…In the midst of this involved discussion, just as I thought I had peace at home, the boy began whining with unbearable growing pains again. I hurriedly abandoned the computer & rushed to his rescue…which might explain the first few comments on my ‘wordless Wednesday’ post. (Thank you Manggy for always hitting the nail on the head…ouch).Yes, I stand guilty of pressing the wrong button, and publishing the post sans ‘words’. Left some candy out on my blog at night for my friends (‘they’ know what I’m talking about), almost kicked myself this morning. Was suitably embarrassed! But oh well, it gave me something to write about huh? Wednesday has gained new significance and a sense of identity since yesterday. Coincidentally, I pressed the button on Wordless Wednesday with a wordless post! Hmmm…
Hump day makes more sense…a reference to making it through to the middle of the work week as getting “over the hump.” on Wednesday.
In the folk rhyme, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe”.
In Richard Brautigan’s In Watermelon Sugar Wednesday is the day when the sun shines grey.
In the 1945 John Steinbeck novel Sweet Thursday, the titular day is preceded by “Lousy Wednesday“.
Happy October. We should be leaping off rooftops enjoying some good fall weather, cool air etc, but it isn’t happening. Global warming at it’s worst and we still suffer from temperatures as high as 37C. Very summer weather but no stone fruit. Unseasonal for this time of the year; the only saving grace is that pears and apples are here! So here is a Pear Tart with an Almond Cream that I made a few days ago with the seasons first bounty of pears. I mixed up a few recipes for a tart from here and there because all I wanted was to make a beautiful frangipane based pear tart but didn’t want to use butter in the almond cream. This came out beautifully, even though I misjudged the size of the tart pan, and used one an inch bigger than I should have. Perils of collecting too many tart pans when one standard size will do! Sigh… anyway, I managed to cut out the butter from the almond cream, and substitute it with single cream (25% fat) which is all we get here locally, and it worked out well. Ideally I would have liked to have the fanned pears peeping out beautifully, but they kind of disappeared under the cream because of the tart pan size. However, the tart was delicious, full of all things good, so I had to share it!
Pear Tart with Almond Cream Ingredients:
4 small medium firm pears
1 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
1 1/2 cups water (approx)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup whole almonds; ground with skins
200ml single cream
1/2 tsp almond essence
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp vanilla sugar
1 1/2 tbsp flour
For the pastry
5 oz plain flour
1/8 tsp salt
4 oz cold unsalted butter, frozen
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
1 tbsp fresh lime/lemon juice
For the pastry:
Put the flour & salt into the bowl of a food processor & blend briefly. Grate in the cold butter & blend till a breadcrumb like mixture forms.
Add beaten egg yolk & lime juice, and pulse till it comes together to form a ball. Wrap in cling wrap & chill for 30 minutes.
For the pears:
Take about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of water & 1 cup of sugar. Scrape 1/2 a vanilla bean into it, and bring to a simmering boil. Use a pan size good enough to submerge the pear halves.
Peel and 1/2 the pears, and put in pan with sugar syrup. Poach on simmer till just done, but firm. Leave to cool in syrup, and then drain well. Reserve syrup for other uses like a base for lemonade or fresh lime-ginger juice, or thicken further to use as ice-cream sauce. It is delicious. Thick syrup also makes a good garnish for plated desserts.
Assembling tart:
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface to 1/8″ thickness, enough to line the tart pan.(I used a slightly large tin in error since I was experimenting, so I lost out on volume) Transfer to an 8″ tart dish and trim. Stand cooled, poached pears on paper towels for 1 minute. Remove the core with a melon baller. Slice each half thinly crosswise, keeping in shape and fanning them out slightly. Transfer to the tart with the help of a metal spatula, and place on bottom of tart pan, arranging like spokes of wheels. Whisk the egg, yolk, cream, almond extract and vanilla extract well with the ground almonds, and ladle over the pears. Sprinkle with the sugar.
Bake for 10 minutes, reduce the temperature to 180C, and bake till the almond cream has set and the pears begin to caramelise, about 20 minutes.
Serve warm or at room temperature. This is nice served with additional chilled poached pears, whipped unsweetened cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. ♥ Thank you for stopping by ♥
