🍐 Glut busting: Pears 🍐
When we moved in to our house we were lucky to have an established pear tree, it provided fruit for us within a few weeks of moving in and we felt as if we had won the lottery.
Pears ripen from the inside so if you leave them on the tree until they are fully ripe, they will likely be mush inside. So for best results pick pears before they are fully ripe and let them ripen at home. You’ll know they are ready to pick when you can cup the fruit in your hand and tilt horizontally, and the fruit comes away easily.
Baked pears
Ingredients
Pears
Sugar
Cinnamon (or other warm spices)
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Take your pears, half and core them. Lay them on a baking tray and sprinkle with sugar, spice and everything nice.
Bake for 30-45 minutes depending on how firm you would prefer your pears and the variety you were starting with.
After having a nice cosy pudding of baked pears and custard, I decided to puree my remaining pears to use in the remaining recipes you'll see here. I needed to add a little water as my pears aren’t very juicy even at their ripest, I don’t know the variety as the tree has been in the neighbourhood longer than anyone else who has lived here (which is really saying something).
Pear ice cream
Ingredients
300ml double cream
300ml full fat milk
115g golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 egg yolks
200ml pear puree
15ml alcohol (optional - to help prevent it turning to a block of ice)
Method
Heat the cream and milk over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until it almost boils. Take off the heat when you see a few bubbles at the edge and set aside for 30 minutes so you don't curdle your custard.
Put the egg yolks into a bowl with the rest of the sugar and beat with a mixer for about 2 minutes until the mixture is thick, paler in colour and falls in thick ribbons.
Spoon in small amounts of your cream mixture and mix it in to your egg yolks until the two are fully incorporated and put the custard mix back on a low heat, stirring regularly.
After about 10 minutes you should see a thicker more custardy like custard, it'll coat the back of a spoon. If it doesn't then your heat might have been too low and you should increase very slightly. If it curdled then you can put your mixture in to a blender/food processor/use an immersion blender to whizz it smooth again and nobody will know.
Anyway, your custard needs to chill out and go in the fridge to cool down before it can be frozen and become ice cream. I added my alcohol and a cinnamon stick at this stage to give it ages to infuse in to the custard and give a really nice cinnamon flavour to the ice cream, which worked out amazingly. More ice cream should have cinnamon. I also mixed in my pears here but you could mix them in later for a pear swirl.
The next stage really depends on your personal ice cream making, if you have an ice cream machine then you are winning at life and should feel superior right about now. I have an ice cream machine, this one in fact and I regularly feel smug and superior.
Follow the instructions on your ice cream machine, if at this point you realise you needed to freeze a thing for 24 hours then your custard will be fine in the fridge for an extra day.
Pear cake
Ingredients
Eggs 2 large
Almond flour 150g
Flour 75g *I used Doves farm gluten free
Sugar 100g
Oil 100ml
Pear puree 200g
Baking Powder 1 tsp
Cinnamon 1-2 tsps
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C
Whisk together eggs and sugar until light and foamy and slowly drizzle in the oil and beat for a further 2 minutes.
Mix together dry ingredients and add to the wet ingredients, mix until fully incorporated then add the pear puree and fully mix.
Line and grease your loaf tin (or cake tin if using) and add your cake mix.
Bake for 35-45 minutes, until the cake has picked up a golden colour and a skewer when inserted will come out clean.
Pear cake served with pear ice cream
