Kitchen Adventures 5.4

Each year we always have some type of fruit to harvest in the orchard back home. I love picking fruit, but I rarely ever eat anything I pick. This year, though, we had a bountiful crop of apples and pears, and they were actually tasty. Sometimes it's just not a good fruit year, but the conditions were right for our trees this year I guess.

While I was home for Karen's wedding I took a break from wedding festivities to pick some apples and pears to bring back with me. I ended up with waaay more fruit than I needed, especially since I'm not a big pear fan. I gave quite a bit away, but I still had some left. After discovering Food Gawker from the girls at work, I decided to see if I could find a good pear recipe. I ended up looking at several blogs from different countries, which was a neat experience. My final selection was a pretty scrumptious pear tart. I had never made a tart or cooked with pears before, so i did not quite know how it would turn out. It was a little work (peeling pears takes time), but it was worth it in the end.

This recipe came from a blog I found through Food Gawker. Here is a link to the website: jun-blog.

Making a Farm Wife’s Fresh Pear Tart *adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1/4 c. milk
1 c. sugar
salt
1 1/2 c. flour
2 pounds fresh pears
butter for greasing the pan and dotting the cake
1/2 c. dry, unflavored bread crumbs
1 dozen cloves, optional (I did not use these)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
2. Beat the eggs and milk together in a bowl. Add the sugar and a tiny pinch of salt, and continue to beat. Add the flour, mixing it in thoroughly to produce a compact cake batter.
3. Peel the pears, cut them lengthwise in two, scoop out the seeds and core, then cut them into thin slices about 1 inch wide, Add them to the batter in the bowl, distributing them evenly.
4. Smear a 9-inch cake pan generously with butter, sprinkle lightly with bread crumbs, then turn the pan over and give it a sharp rap against the counter to shake loose excess crumbs.
5. Put the batter into the pan, leveling it off with the back of a spoon or a spatula. Make numerous small hollows on top with a fingertip and fill them with little bits of butter. Stud with the optional cloves, distributing them at random, but apart. Place the pan in the upper third of the preheated oven and bake for 50 minutes, or until the top has become lightly colored.

What I liked about this was that the fruit did not turn mushy. It may have been the type of pears I used, but they stayed fairly crisp after baking. It is delicious slightly warm, but also good at room temperature.