Last week we bought some incredibly soft and sweet autumn pears, and Mom immediately came up with the idea of a Pear and Cream Cake. We used frozen puff pastry – or you might prefer to make your own at home, which means you are a very patient person :) I easily come to a compromise between the store-bought and the home-made when it comes to puff pastry. They sell some really good-quality pastry in a nearby supermarket, and it makes life so much easier! Isn’t a home-made croissant or turnover made with frozen puff pastry still better than having sandwiches for lunch again?!
Anyways, we laid those sugary-simmered pears on a sheet of pastry, topped them with whipped egg and cream, sprinkled the cake with almond shavings, put it into oven and waited for 45 minutes, enjoying the warm smells of melting cream, vanilla, and baking pastry. The cake came out tender and sweet, with a very mild citrus flavour and a dreamy touch of vanilla. We let it cool until room temperature, so it became easy to cut. You might as well try serving it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. Read the rest of this entry »
In this Northern country we happened to live in, autumn is approaching already. I’ve noticed I have much less cravings for ice-cream and sorbets, and much more for tea, hot chocolate and something sweet and baked, preferably something you can prepare on a Friday night and stretch the pleasure into the weekend.
Sunny P said she was with me about the lemon zest diet – well, unfortunately I haven’t yet thought of one, but we did make a pie with four large and juicy lemons the other night. Just imagine that tart-and-fruity filling wrapped into a soft, moist pastry. Mmm. I think we’ll be making this pie with cranberries in place of lemons some time in future, and of course I’ll post the recipe and pictures if we do. Basically you might use almost any fresh berries as a filling, but something sour is better. And the most exciting thing about lemon filling is that you grind the lemons entirely, with all zest.
Another important tip is to let the pie cool properly before serving. Maybe even leave it in a cool place overnight and let the lemons soak into the pastry.
Finally, about the lemons. We had those really sour ones, so we took 1 cup sugar per lemon for the filling. If you prefer to use sweeter sorts of lemon, such as Meyer or other, please make sure you re-calculate the amount of sugar you need. Read the rest of this entry »
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