TWD: Fold-Over Pear Torte

What a strange little hybrid dessert this was.

It uses pie dough, but it's baked in a springform pan. The filling is chopped fresh pears, and pecans, and dried apricots. It's all held together with a vanilla custard, and then the pie crust is partially folded over the edges. So many things going on! It's like five different desserts got together and had a baby and named it Fold-Over Pear Torte--confusing in and of itself, since isn't a torte a European cake?--and baked it in my oven for fifty kajillion minutes during which butter leaked out of the pan and burned in the oven and filled the kitchen with stinky smoke and....somewhere along the way this sentence turned from a convoluted simile into straightforward whining. Apologies!

At the end of the day, this was better than I thought it would be, but I admit my expectations were low because it seemed so random. The truth is, most of these elements are not my favorite things--cooked pears and custard and pie crust, to name a few--so it probably didn't have a chance at winning my heart. The hubs and I were both pleasantly surprised at how not-gross it was, to give you the world's most lukewarm endorsement.


The real problem, of course, is that it's not a looker, and we all know how I like to judge books by their cover.

What did everyone else think? Were you able to see past the ugly duckling exterior and devour the tasty swan inside?*

*This time, it's a metaphor that's gone awry. Forgive me.

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Pear-Pistachio Tart and a GIVEAWAY!

Wow, did this tart smack me upside the head and surprise me. I am so not a pistachio person. I don't hate them, but they're low on my list of go-to nuts, and I can't ever remember craving pistachios or pistachio flavored anything. And also, they're green. What is that about?
Imagine my surprise, then, when I fell in love with this pistachioriffic tart.
This tart had a pistachio crust (I added 1/4 c ground nuts to the dough), a pistachio pastry cream with bits of ground pistachios left in, and a topping of caramelized pistachios. I loved the triple-nut combination, and I could have been happy just eating that plain, without the poached pears on top.

I must admit, though, the pears were a nice touch. The recipe called for them to be poached in red wine, but since I don't drink wine, I poached them in a mixture of citrus rinds and crushed blackberries to give them a fruity aroma and, of course, the beautiful rose color. Here's what I didn't add: sugar. Oops! I was so caught up in squishing the berries with my hands (squeeeeeze the juiiiiiice! Bonus points if you say it in an Encino Man voice) I completely forgot the sugar. They turned out fine, although a little extra sweetness would have been nice, since these pears were not all that ripe.

Overall, though, stunning. Loved it. An elegant company dessert that can be made in advance and is fairly fast to assemble. This is the second Dorie pear tart to knock it out of the ballpark for me, I'm beginning to think the lady knows her pear desserts!

This dessert and my newfound pistachio obsession could not have come at a better time, because I have a nutty giveaway for you! The kind folks at Oh Nuts! have offered my readers a $25 gift certificate for the holidays. Have you seen their website? They offer 14 kinds of bulk pistachios, for crying out loud, and all sorts of other dried fruit, nuts, and candies.

So there are three ways to enter:

1. Go to the Oh Nuts Hanukkah gifts page or to the Christmas Nuts Gift page. Choose your favorite Hanukkah Gift or Christmas Gift and leave a comment on this blog post with the name and url of the gift you love the most.


2. Go to the oh nuts facebook page become a fan and post on the wall the url and name of your favorite Hanukkah Gift or Christmas Gift. Be sure to also write "I am here via "Cake or Death." Then leave a comment here telling me you did this.

3. On Twitter, follow @ohnuts and Tweet either: " Win a free Hanukkah Gift from http://bit.ly/6nIsCi Follow @ohnuts & Retweet to enter. " OR: “ Win a free Christmas Gift from http://bit.ly/537HNp Follow @ohnuts & Retweet to enter.” Then leave a comment here telling me you did this.

That's a total of THREE possible entries in this giveaway! The drawing closes at midnight PST on December 14th, so there's plenty of time to get commenting, facebookin', and tweetin'. G'luck!

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TWD: Allspice Crumb Muffins

These Allspice Crumb Muffins looked great, but they really, really did not work for me. And I love muffins! And I love crumb topping! And I love spices! I even added some diced pears to the batter to give it a nice fall, fruit-and-spice-and-everything-nice flavor. However, all the pears in the world couldn't help these puppies...


I don't know why I disliked them so much. Nothing was wrong with them, per se, but I couldn't even make it through a whole muffin. I pulled the top off, Seinfeld-style, expecting to love it and all of its spicy, crumby, muffiny glory. Instead, it coated my throat and left me wanting water and a good tooth brushing. I felt like a dog eating peanut butter:



I could. not. stop. making those wet lip smacking sounds, but it wasn't a ooh, delicious-style smack, more of a why can't I swallow properly, get this gooey stuff out of my mouth-lip smack. Uch. Even typing this now, a week after eating it, I'm making that face. Not good.



My husband ate several and thought they were fine (not outstanding), so I know I didn't accidentally add arsenic or fatally screw up the recipe in some other way. However, the leftovers ended up getting tossed, which is unusual round these parts, so it's safe to say these were not a big hit with anyone. Now let us never mention allspice muffins again. Anyone seen my peanut butter?

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Pear and Gouda Scones

Recently I was lucky enough to receive some samples from a company called Oh! Nuts. They sell...you guessed it...all different kinds of nuts and dried fruit, along with many candies and snack items. (The selection really is amazing, and after a quick browse-through I've discovered about 5374 ingredients I simply must have.) The samples I got were roasted hazelnuts, dried pears, raspberry-flavored dried cherries, and coconut malted milk balls. I've been happily experimenting with my fun new ingredients in some desserts, and I'll be featuring them here over the next week or so.

...but before we get to the recipes, can I please tell you how EPIC the coconut malted milk balls were?

Oh mama, these were dangerous. First of all, they were huge--larger than a quarter, I'd estimate. And secondly, they were absolutely delicious. Nothing like the stale mothballs masquerading as "maltballs" in the grocery store. These were melt-in-your-mouth, double-your-pants-size-in-one-bite good. I had to give a half-eaten bag to my father to get them out of the house.

But I digress.

Back to the fruit and nuts! I first went to town on the dried pears...I had some fabulous gouda with walnut pieces that I wanted to pair with it, so I decided to do scones.

Scones are kind of a treat around our house...we usually like to save our calorie splurges for later in the day, so I don't often do breakfast baking. This recipe might convince me to change my mind! The dried pears added a nice chewiness and sweetness to the scones, that was offset by the sharp gouda and the walnut pieces from the cheese. Add in a flaky, buttery scone base, and what's not to love?




Pear and Gouda Scones
from Chocolate and Zucchini
180 grams (1 1/3 cup) all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
A fat pinch of ground piment d'Espelette (substitute any moderately hot ground chili)
3/4 teaspoon fleur de sel (substitute kosher salt)
75 grams (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, diced
85 grams (1 cup) coarsely grated 36-month-old Gouda (substitute another type of aged firm cheese, such as Comté, Parmesan, or Cheddar)
20 grams (3 tablespoons) diced dried pears
100 mL (7 tablespoons) light (15%) cream
1 egg yolk, beaten with a tablespoon fresh water

Makes 9 small pieces.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, piment d'Espelette, and salt. Add the butter and rub it into the dry ingredients with the tips of your fingers or a wire pastry blender, until the mixture forms coarse crumbs. Add the cheese and pears, and blend with a fork.

Add the cream and mix it in gently with the fork until the dough comes together -- add a tad more cream or ice-cold water if the dough is too dry. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured work surface, gather into a ball, and roll out into a 2-cm-thick (3/4-inch) circle. Cut out circles of dough using a 6-cm (2 1/2-inch) cookie cutter or juice glass and transfer onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving about an inch of space between each. Gather the rest of the dough into a ball and repeat the rolling and cutting steps until you've used up all the dough.

Use a pastry brush or the back of a teaspoon to brush the top of the rounds with the egg yolk mixture. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until puffy and golden, rotating the baking sheet halfway through the baking. Let cool on a rack for a few minutes and serve. The scones will keep for a few days at room temperature, wrapped tightly in foil. Reheat for five minutes in a warm oven before serving.

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Tuesdays with Dorie: Pear Almond Tart

Oh, YUM. This week's TWD recipe, a Pear Almond Tart, was chosen by Dorie herself, so I was already planning on saying nice things about it, even if I didn't like it. Fortunately, the tart was fabulous, so I don't even have to lie. Bonus!

This particular tart is pretty common in bakeries--I've made a version of this at most of my bakery jobs in the past. A sweet tart shell is filled with almond cream, topped with sliced poached (or canned) pears, and baked until set. Although canned pears are an option in the recipe, I couldn't bear to use them. I actually got as far as opening the can, but they were just so...shrimpy and pathetic. Like, half the size of normal pear halves! No tart of mine can have limp, stunted pears!

Instead, I poached some fresh pears in a simple syrup, flavored with big chunks of orange. I actually did two batches, and to the second batch, I added big handfuls of blackberries, to give the pears a gorgeous red color. All the extra fruit in the simmering syrup also helped to give the pears a fruitier aroma, which was awesome because my supermarket pears were a little low in the flavor department.

I admit to being initially baffled by the pear slicing-and-arranging instructions. Fortunately the internet schooled me, and I think this is how it's supposed to look. Before reading the tips from other folks, I was planning on slicing the pears and fanning them out over the entire top of the tart, which would have looked okay too. But I do like the look of this design.
The tart was pretty easy to throw together, although it wasn't exactly fast. Between making the dough and almond cream, the dough chilling, then pre-baking, and the poaching of the pears (which took me more like 50 minutes, as opposed to 15) it was definitely a multi-hour project, although the actual work time was probably under an hour.

So how was it? Well, let me put it this way: see that tart slice below? The one that's about 1/5th of the entire 9-inch tart? I ate the whole thing in one go. Standing up. With my bare hands. Right after I took these photos, which I rushed through at the end because I really wanted to taste it. So, yeah. It was okay.

Actually, it was fantastic! The almond flavor in the crust and the cream (helped by a touch of almond extract) was perfectly paired with the light pear (and hint of citrus) flavor of the fruit. The supple fruit, soft cream, crispy crust...yes. Perfection indeed. This is also a good example of a dessert I probably wouldn't have chosen to make myself (because I am so predictably chocolate-focused) but that I enjoyed immensely. So props to Dorie for choosing a great recipe, and double props for writing a great recipe!

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