Pears Poached in Caramel with Toasted Brioche and Creme Fraiche

This lovely dessert is simpler than it sounds, and is a variation on a rather more elaborate recipe by Raymond Blanc, where he encases the poached pears in a 'charlotte' of brioche and bakes it.  He suggests the simpler version of poaching the pears in caramel sauce and serving it with a slice of toasted brioche with a spoonful of creme fraiche, so this is the route I took.  We had more of the perfect little baby Williams Pears from Riverford this week, so peeled them and poached them in the rich caramel sauce which is made thus: dissolve 5 tablespoons of caster sugar with 2 tablespoons of water in a heavy pan over a low heat.  Turn up the heat, and cook to a good golden caramel, not quite as dark as you would for a creme caramel but a good dark colour all the same.  DON'T stir it whilst this is happening, else the sugar will crystallise and be ruined.  If necessary, just swish the pan occasionally.  When the correct colour is attained, take off the heat and immediately add 100ml of double cream - take care as it will spatter.  When it has all subsided, return to a low heat, add 25g of butter and a tablespoon each of lemon juice and either Calvados, Cognac or Poires William if you have it.  Now submerge 8 small or 4 larger peeled pears in the sauce, cover, and simmer until tender.  This depends on size and ripeness, but our baby pears were done in about 8 minutes.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool with the lid on, then transfer the pears with all their delicious caramel sauce to a bowl and refrigerate.  You can eat them as they are with vanilla ice cream, toasted nuts, shortbread, whatever floats your boat.  Or, if you have some brioche knocking about (as you do), toast a small slice per person, and serve the sweet bread with the pear, some sauce and ice cream or creme fraiche.  Perfect.

Red Wine Poached Pears

I love this time of year - with all the fabulous Autumnal fruit and veg, you are spoilt for choice.  In this week's Riverford delivery were 8 perfect baby Williams pears, just crying out to be peeled and poached, so how could I resist?  I use Alice Waters' recipe from the Chez Panisse Fruit book - a source of constant inspiration and reliable classics.  Prepare the poaching base which is an entire bottle of good red wine - nothing vintage but it must be drinkable - with the pared zest and juice of a lemon and a cinnamon stick, with a cup of caster sugar.  Bring to a simmer in a non-reactive pot (i.e. not aluminium or copper), whilst you wash and peel your pears, keeping the stalk on if you can.  Using the tip of your paring knife, dig out a little of the core on the bottom.  Immerse the pears in the simmering wine, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the pears are tender - this will depend on the size and ripeness of your pears so keep testing after 20 minutes.  Turn off the heat and leave the pears to cool in the liquid.  An hour later, they will be buttery-tender and the most amazing colour.  Carefully remove them with a slotted spoon and put in a bowl.  Now, return the poaching liquor to a high heat and boil and reduce to about a cup/250ml, until thick and syrupy.  Your house will smell amazing!  Resist the temptation to drink this straight away and spoon carefully over the pears, leaving them glossy and glorious.  When cool, cover and refrigerate and serve just as they are or with creme fraiche, whipped cream, ice cream, Greek yoghurt, or - in our case - with some chilled creamy vanilla egg custard and sprinkled with toasted slivered almonds.

Chocolate Pear Cake

I am tentatively allowing some home-baked goodies back into our diet, on the basis that a little slice of cake made with the best fresh ingredients will ALWAYS be better for you than a processed rice cake or anaemic low-fat commercial biscuit.  Since doing the original Nigel Challenge a couple of years ago, I have become a fan of his favourite 'pound cake' recipe, where essentially you have the same weight of butter, sugar and flour - organic, please, for the best flavour.  This cake uses 125g each of those ingredients, along with 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 30g of cocoa powder (get the best you can afford), a teaspoon of vanilla essence (again, the good stuff from Madagascar), 2 organic eggs and 100ml of plain yoghurt.  Have the butter nice and soft and then chuck it all into the KitchenAid and beat until it goes a pale milk chocolately colour and is soft and creamy.  You could just sit on the floor of the kitchen, in the corner, and eat it out of the bowl now.  Or resist, and spoon it into a parchment-lined 20cm-square baking tin.  Peel and chop 2 ripe pears and press the chunks into the top of the sponge.  Bake at 170C for about 45 minutes, during which time the pear will sink beguilingly into the chocolate batter.  This will serve 8-10 people, so is really not as bad as you'd think, with about 15g of fat per serve.

Chocolate Pear Pudding

A recipe, this, from Nigella Express.  When I was looking for it online, I came across some episodes from 'Nigella Bites' on Youtube, from about 10 years ago, and was struck at how much Nigella has changed.  I don't mean physically - haven't we all become a little more, ahem, voluptuous, over the intervening years?  Her personality was much less 'in your face' and not nearly as flirty as she is in her current incarnation.  Anyhow, this is a delicious and dead simple recipe.  Nigella uses tinned pears, but we had a surfeit of extremely ripe fresh pears that we peeled and halved.  Yummy!

Cinnamon Pear Cake with Vanilla Fudge Sauce [#252]

Now, safety alert: if you are on a diet, please look away now, as this posting will only make you cry.  For the rest of you, read this recipe, then go out, buy the ingredients, and make it.  Every now and then, we all need this, and it does feed a lot of people.  This is essentially a buttery sponge, with nuggets of buttery, caramelised cinnamony pear embedded in it, doused in a buttery fudge sauce.  Have you picked up on the fact there is a lot of butter in it?  Well, we just won't eat any of the stuff for the rest of the week, and indulge (almost) guiltlessly.  When I die, can you please ensure I am embalmed in this sauce?  And if I eat any more of it, that particular event may not be too far off.  Here is a link to the recipe, as cooked by the lovely blogger, Little Bird Eats.  It should come as no surprise that this recipe is from the marvellous Nigel Slater, and can also be found in his recently published 'Tender: Vol 2'.  You won't ever regret buying this, or the first volume.

Fennel, Watercress and Pear Salad [#163]

We had doubts about Nigel's suggestion of serving this salad with a dish of haddock, bacon and parsley, so served it, instead, with his Macaroni with Fontina and Mustard, a much more satisfactory combination. Dead simple salad of watercress topped with shaved Florence fennel (it HAS to be paper-thin) and thin slices of a delicious crisp Williams pear from Italy. The dressing was nice too - lime juice and olive oil, simply seasoned with salt and pepper. I think, next time, I might sprinkle over some toasted walnuts or similar for even more texture. Really nice salad, though, do try it!

Poached Pears with Ice-cream and Chocolate Sauce [#162]

Some nice little early season English Conference Pears are currently poaching in a lemon and vanilla syrup, ready to be served with Haagen Dazs Praline Ice-cream (Nigel was very specific about the flavour) and a shot of inky chocolate sauce using 85% Lindt. This is a simple version of Poires Belle Helene but nothing wrong with that! The classics are the best. This will follow a wonderful braised brisket, based on a recipe from Tamasin Day-Lewis's new book Supper for a Song which has just been published and is full of very promising recipes. I do like her books - she is a bit wordy and flowery, but an excellent cook.

A Really Fast Cake with Blueberries and Pears [#133]

True to his word, Nigel has given us a really fast cake. A 'pound cake' mixture, with equal quantities of butter, flour and sugar, with chopped pears and blueberries pressed into the top before baking, it seems more appropriate in August than in May when it appears in the book - even then, the pears came from Argentina.....oops! Sorry about the food miles! At least the blueberries are English. Lovely simple cake with a touch of cream. Mmmmmm! No online recipe, I'm afraid - you need to get the book if you want this one.