Fruit And Nut Case

There were three pears left in the fruit bowl, so I made a cake using a recipe from this book.

PEAR AND ALMOND PUDDING CAKE – from HFW - Serves 8

• 150g unsalted butter, softened

• 125g caster sugar

• 2 medium eggs

• 75g wholemeal self raising flour

• 75g ground almonds

• A good pinch of cinnamon

• 3 pears (reasonably firm, but not rock hard)

• 25g unsalted butter

• 1 tbsp granulated sugar

Method: How to make pear and almond cake

1. Preheat oven to 170°C/gas 3. Grease a 20cm-diameter springform cake tin and line the base with baking parchment.

2. Peel, core and quarter the pears.

3. Melt the 25g butter in a frying pan big enough to take all the pear pieces, over a medium high heat. When it’s bubbling, add the sugar and stir gently until it has dissolved into the butter. Add the pears and cook gently, turning once or twice, until they have softened and are starting to colour – 5-10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

4. In a mixing bowl, beat the softened butter with the caster sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in one egg at a time, adding a spoonful of the flour with each to stop the mix curdling.

5. Combine the remaining flour, the ground almonds and the cinnamon, and fold into the mixture. Scrape into the prepared tin. Arrange the pears on top and pour on any buttery juices left in the pan.

6. Bake for about 40-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

7. Stand the cake in its tin on a wire rack to cool for a few minutes, then release the tin. Serve the cake warm with cream/custard/yogurt – or cold.

Here it is cooling in the tin!

Once cut, it starts disappearing quickly.

The almond flavour is very pleasant [well I would say that, wouldn't I?]

 

My other foray into the kitchen over the weekend was to make jelly. One of my bargain finds on holiday two weeks ago was a traditional glass jelly mould. I had some 'frozen forest fruits' in the freezer, so decided to make a fresh fruity pudding.

It looked so good prior to unmoulding

All rich, and glistening, and exciting. The fruit was well distributed throughout the jelly. Then disaster struck!

Once unmoulded it totally collapsed. I surrounded the island with a pink sea of cranberry and cherry yogurt. Then I slopped it into two dishes.

It didn't matter much - Bob was watching the Grand Prix on TV, and I could have fed him almost anything and he would not have noticed!

[as GP is the only sport he follows, it is about the only time he has his Sunday lunch on a tray in front of the TV]

Saw this on the Internet and thought it was neat...

 

If I still had small children, I should definitely want a Lego Jelly Mould!