BAKING

Pear Cardomom Mock Bread Pudding

Salvador Dali, 1904-1989
The Face of Mae West Which Can Be Used as an Apartment, 1935.
Oil on canvas; dimensions unavailable
Spanish Surrealist Painter

This dessert was a wonderful surprise during some experimentation with pears, which are so abundant this time of year. I didn’t want to go with the traditional favorites this Thanksgiving. This year, I thought more about flavors rather than seasons: this year’s inspiration was more of an intuitive response to that which has been bombarding my senses.

Every time I’ve been to the store this past week, more and more varieties of pears are arriving by the day. I stuck with the organic selection, which narrowed the playing field considerably, so next I based my decision on the fullness of the aroma. The organic concorde won by a landslide, so I carefully searched and placed 8 big beauties into a plastic bag and then into my cart, being certain to gently pinch the neck of each to test for relative ripeness. They all gave ever so slightly—if the skin sinks easily beneath the weight of your thumb, they are perfect for eating right away but useless for poaching; they would fall apart far too easily, and I had poaching on the brain, with maple syrup? Yes, a maple brown sugar simple syrup for the pears and good butter for the pear pound cake. A pear pound cake with pears poached in a maple brown sugar syrup…

Well. the pound cake idea didn’t quite turn out as I’d hoped. The sliced pears sank to the bottom and the center of the cake refused to set, even after being in the oven for over an hour and a half. But not all was lost. The flavor was simply amazing. The butteriness of the cake, coupled with the sweet woody flavor of the maple syrup was flat out delicious. But the baking of the cake was just too long; I wasn’t impressed to say the least.

I sat on the recipe for another day, ruminating over each and every step I was going to take, each adjustment I was going to employ to make this combination of flavors work.

I wrote out the recipe in long hand, just as I always do, and then I gathered up my pears and set to peeling. I was far too excited to wait until morning to see if this one turns out as I’d hoped. So I dashed in, headlong, and this is what I found on the other side…

Loaded with fruit, this dessert, according to Tim, “has the consistency of a soft bread pudding, and just enough spice to feel seasonal.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked.
“Oh no, it’s a good thing. No, I like this one a lot.”
Done and done!

PEAR CARDAMOM MOCK BREAD PUDDING

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Dominique Delfino, 2005
Foliage from Nans Sous Ste. Anne, France
French Nature Photographer

November 14th, 2007 — 2:11 pm

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