Pear and Caramel Cakes

The day before I went down to Cornwall I was brainstorming what I wanted to make. I had a nice list, took in some requests (cheesecake, chocolate, chocolate cheesecake, cake), and went to bed content.

Then, as I was lying there, I started dreaming up a new cake. I think it may have spawned from a favourite pear and chocolate crumble I make (favourite combination strikes again!), as I sometimes cook the pears in sugary, spice laden water before putting it all together if they're not ripe enough. I wanted the idea of lacings of caramel with the pear tender to bite. I thought I could mix half the caramel into the batter and swirl in the rest of the caramel, with the pears in. I got rather overexcited by the idea, so jumped out of bed and went to scrawl it down.


I wanted to make a loaf cake out of the mix, but when I got down there, we didn't have any decent baking equipment in the cupboard. On our trip to the supermarket I scouted out some normal cake tins for the cheesecake and cake, but alas - no loaf tin. I settled for some muffin tins - I knew the cake tins would be full of cheesecake and it just felt wrong to make it like that somehow!


Then I got home and started baking and realised that while we had three sets of scales - none of them really worked. We have a beautiful set of balance scales at home and some digital ones for backup/tiny amounts so I was really unused to them being so inaccurate. So some of my measurements were a little off, but hopefully I managed to gauge the amounts properly for the recipe.


I decided to use a very basic cupcake/plain cake mix I use as a starting point as my base, then add in the caramel. I had never actually made caramel before, so I did some research and found David Lebovitz's great articles on How to Make the Perfect Caramel and Ten Tips for Making Caramel. So I nervously poured some golden caster sugar into a big pan - read a little more and realised this was a bad idea - and swiftly tipped the golden caster out and replaced it with white. It got a little stuck to the spoon and I did get some crispy bits in it, as you can see below, but they were pretty yummy so I wasn't complaining.

I stopped it with some cream - perhaps a second too early, but it was still nice and not too underdone. Perhaps a little less would have made the liquid more solid? I know I'll be experimenting with this for years to come.



With all the caramel, the mixture came out pretty thin - next time I would definitely reduce the cream in the caramel and perhaps up the flour? I had too much mix for the muffin tins, so I put the rest in a handy quiche tin. I was a little worried at how sweet the mix was, but when cooked it mellowed out. I might still reduce the sugar in the cake another time.

They came out tasting lovely - if looking a little odd in their muffin environment, a loaf setting would definitely suit them better. I left the one that ended up in the quiche tin at home with Mum and she raved about it - which reinforces the idea it would be better in a bigger setting. They're sweet, but not overpoweringly so, with a slightly nutty taste, and the pear was perfect.

Definitely some room for improvement, but I'm very excited by how good they were.



Pear and Caramel Cakes

Edit: I've removed the recipe as I'm not happy with it and don't want you to try it and be disappointed. I'm working on a new version.

Bacon, Red Pepper and Mushroom Spaghetti

I don't often feel like a 'normal' savoury meal deserves a post. After all, however often we bake, it's not a necessity, it's not sustenance, it's something special. Baking doesn't feel everyday, even if it is done everyday.

This dish isn't something fancy, it's not a big palaver of a dinner party dish, but it's everyday. It tastes wonderful, don't get me wrong, but it's just... normal.

Close to the house in Cornwall there's this little farm stall with an honesty box just off the lane. They sell all their fresh veg along with eggs, some cakes, kindling etc etc. I miss fresh farm veg a lot in Verbier, as we have to buy supermarket stuff, at least in winter. Even onions are just so much better like this.

It doesn't need dressing up - I always feel the mark of amazing veg is that I would happy eat a plate of it on its own, with nothing but a little butter and salt and pepper. Perhaps not the onions, though!

This is a lovely, light spaghetti, though it feels fairly indulgently creamy. It's great to have some English bacon for a change - the thick smoked slabs of meat that are so different from Swiss bacon.

I adore red peppers, too - I used to devour whole peppers as a small child. I have no time for the green ones, though - only red, yellow, orange. Sunny colours! This was one of those lovely long ones which taste like bell peppers but look like chili- I think some people call them Italian sweet peppers?

I don't have a hugely detailed recipe - it's so simple anyway, it would be silly to get over-accurate on it.

Bacon, Red Pepper and Mushroom Spaghetti

(Serves 2)

1 onion

1 sweet pepper

3 rashers of thick bacon

3/4 big mushrooms

handful of parsley

100ml creme fraiche

100g spaghetti

Put the spaghetti on to cook according to the packet instructions. Soften the chopped onion with a little olive oil in a frying pan on a fairly high heat. Add the chopped bacon and cook for a minute or two before turning the heat down a little and adding the chopped mushroom and pepper. Heat until the mushrooms look wilted and cooked and the bacon is cooked through. Drain the spaghetti. Stir in the creme fraiche and parsley until the creme fraiche takes on a darker colour from mixing in and melts a bit, then toss the spaghetti into the saucepan, mix and plate up.