Baking with Pears

Pear Charlotte

Ingredients

7 ripe pears, peeled, cored and sliced to ¼ inch thick

2/3 cup and 1 Tbs sugar

Pinch of salt

1 Tbs pear liqueur (optional)

1 ½ Tbs fresh lemon juice

1 loaf Brioche sliced to 3/16 inch thick and crusts removed

4 oz butter

1 recipe Chantilly Cream

Equipment

8 six ounce ramekins, 3 inch diameter and 1 ½ inches deep.

Preheat over on 350 degrees.

Put the pear slices in a large saute pan with 2/3 cup sugar, pinch of aslt and optional pear liqueur and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat, stirring often until the pears are soft about 10 minutes. Set to cool

Place butter and 1 Tbs sugar and the cinnamon in the fowl o fan electric mixer. Use the paddle attachment to cream the mixture.

Butter each piece of brioche with cinnamon butter cut the length of the loaf into 3 pieces and cut lengths into individual pieces to the height of the ramekin. Line the ramekins butter side against the ramekin. Fill each ramekins with ¼ cup of the pear mixture.

Bake the charlottes for 15 to 20 minutes until the brioche is toasted. Unmold and serve warm with vanilla custard sauce and Chantilly cream

Vanilla Custard Sauce

Ingredients

10 large egg yolks

3 Tbs Sugar

Pinch of Salt

3 ¼ cups milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

In a medium sized stainless steel bowl whisk together egg yolks, sugar and salt until creamy.

Heat the milk in a sauce pan, slowly add to the bowl with the eggs to temper. Set the bowl over simmering water and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture thickens 5 to 10 minutes. Strain and cool custard above an ice bath. Cover with plastic wrap touching the surface of the custard and refrigerate until needed.

Chantilly Cream

Ingredients

2 ¼ cup whipping cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ½ Tbs sugar

Pinch of salt

Put all ingredients in a bowl and whisk until the cream holds shape, refrigerate until ready to use.

Brioche

Ingredients

1 tsp dry yeast

½ cup warm water

3 Tbs sugar

6 large eggs

600 grams AP flour

1 ¾ tsp salt

11 ounces softened butter

Combine yeast, water and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk together and let stand for 10 minutes. Use the paddle attachment on low to stir in the eggs, add the flour and salt until incorporated. Switch to the dough hook turn on mixer and slowly add the butter, about a table spoon at a time. After you have added all of the butter continue to knead in the mixer for another 5 minutes.

Put the dough in a bowl and let rise until double about 2 hours. Next divide the dough into 2 pieces and place into 2 greased loaf pans. Let rise again for another 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the bread for 30 about minutes. The bread will make a hollow sound when tapped on the outside and will be a dark brown color. Remove from the pans and cool on a rack.

Small Pear and Almond Cakes

For poached pears

12 firm small Seckel pears (2 to 3 inches long)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 cups Essencia or other Muscat wine

1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter

For cakes

1 1/2 cups whole blanched almonds (1/2 lb)

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for greasing ramekins

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

4 large eggs

2/3 cup all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting

3/8 teaspoon salt

Special Equipment

a small melon-ball cutter

12 (4-oz) ramekins

Poach pears:

Peel pears, leaving stems intact, then core from bottom with melon-ball cutter. Toss pears with lemon juice in a bowl as peeled, then arrange on their sides in a 10-inch heavy skillet. Add wine, butter, and lemon juice from bowl (liquid will not cover pears) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, until pears are just tender, 10 to 20 minutes. Transfer pears with a slotted spoon to a dish. Boil poaching liquid, uncovered, until just syrupy and reduced to about 1/4 cup, 12 to 15 minutes. Spoon syrup over pears and cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes.

Prepare cakes:

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 400°F.

Pulse almonds with 1/2 cup sugar in a food processor until finely ground, then transfer to a bowl (do not clean processor).

Process butter with 1/2 cup sugar in processor until pale and creamy, then pulse in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, blending well after each addition, then pulse in almond mixture, flour, and salt until just combined.

Lightly butter and flour ramekins, knocking out excess flour, then arrange in a baking pan. Divide batter among ramekins (about a slightly rounded 1/2 cup per ramekin), then gently nestle a pear, leaning it slightly and pressing it very lightly, into batter in center of each cake. (Cakes will rise around pears as they bake.) Reserve reduced poaching liquid for another use. Sprinkle pears and tops of cakes with remaining tablespoon sugar.

Bake, rotating pan halfway through baking, until cakes are just firm and pale golden with slightly darker edges, about 20 minutes.

Transfer ramekins to a rack and cool 10 minutes, then run a thin knife around edge of each cake and invert onto a plate. Turn cakes right side up and serve warm or at room temperature.