All things Pear’85from Heidi at the Marble Mountain Ranch kitchens
Most of the fall is usually fishy, with fishermen coming and going for our steelhead fly fishing trips , or nutty, with walnuts and pecans dropping both nuts and leaves faster than I can pick them up. However, today all things centered around Pears at our family ranch. Although we did not have much of a pear harvest from our own trees this year, due to odd spring/summer weather, we were blessed to be able to obtain pears from our church farm in Medford Oregon. Today I woke up with the daunting task of figuring out what to do with 120 pounds of pears after having already processed about 60 pounds of Bartlett pears. Today I was working with Comice, D’92anjou, and Bosc pears. My counters are now covered with beautiful jars of pickled pears, pear honey, and pear mincemeat. We enjoyed the pear mincemeat with our pork tenderloin tonight and smothered our corn bread in pear honey. YUM! Hope you are all having a marvelous fall. It’92s a glorious time of year filled with lots of color and the harvests of the season.
Here is a another of my “what’s in the refrigerator” blog entries, title Autumn Pear Torte
Autumn Pear Torte
Ingredients
* 2 1/2 cups flour
* 8 oz. (2 sticks) cold butter, cut into 1 inch lengths
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 1/8 tsp. salt
* 1 egg yolk
* 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
* 2 tsp. water
* 1/3 cup fine breadcrumbs (or ground almonds)
* 6 ripe (d’92Anjou or Comice) pears
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) butter, cut into 1 inch lengths
* 1 1/4 cup blanched or unblanched almonds
* 1 egg
* 1 tsp. flour
* 1/2 cup heavy cream
* 8 oz. mascarpone
Instructions
To make the pastry, put the flour, butter, sugar, and salt in a food
processor, and process until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. In a small bowl or measuring cup, mix together the egg yolk, with the vanilla and water. With the machine running, pour in this mixture and process until the dough just comes together. Press the dough into the bottom and up the sides of a 10 inch springform pan and chill until needed.
Meanwhile, peel, halve, and core the pears. Spread the breadcrumbs over the bottom of the prepared tart shell, and arrange the pears all over the bottom with the rounded side out. You may need to cut some of the pears to fit in the shell.
To make the filling, put the sugar, butter, almonds, whole egg, flour in the food processor and process until smooth. Cover the pears with the almond mixture. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven until golden brown, approx. 1 hour. Let rest for an hour before serving (This torte will keep in the fridge for a week). Serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream mixed with mascarpone. Serves 8
This year we are starting an new program of Bed and Breakfast culinary retreats . The pear torte will be highlighted on one of our upcoming classes. We hope you can join us!~ Heidi Cole