Chocolate Rum Caramel Upside Down Pear Cake

It was a cake not meant to be. Or so I thought.

 Rum Caramel Pears

Red wine poached pears entremet

Hi. Does anyone even drop by anymore? :)

I know I'm not an expert in many things, but I'm certainly a master in procrastinating. These days, I have simply no urge to blog, nor even, *gasp* bake. It seems my lackadaisical plateau has hit an even lower bottom than I had possibly imagined.

Oh well. I'm not going to question it, but go with the flow. Perhaps I've spent too much time overanalysing this, but I'll try to post some photos today to make up for the absence for the past two weeks. I had a baking session some time back with Evan, and we had decided to make another entremet together (yes, it's so hard to find like minded people who love to bake entremets - or rather, I'm just a very shy person to begin with so I don't reach out my hand first to know more people hee).

Red wine poached pears entremet

Moscato poached pear tart with chai spiced custard and almond crust

About a month ago, I wanted to make something fruity. So I bought some pears. Sugar pears from New Zealand to be exact. Sometimes, I buy the fruit before I know what I want to make with them, while sometimes, I buy them with an idea on what to do with them. It so happens that I did have a recipe in mind...

Moscato poached pear tart with chai spiced custard and almond crust

Hazelnut pear brown butter muffins

Fruits such as apples, pears and oranges might seem ordinary at first glance. After all, they are available almost any time of the year, and are readily available in most countries. However, if you dive into the world of fruits into details, there are actually quite a wide range of varieties for every single fruit. Take the humble pear for instance. Before I developed my passion for baking, I only knew of two kinds of pears - the ubiquitous green William pears, and the Asian pear. When my passion grew, I started taking note of fruits in a different light while grocery shopping. Pears come in so many different shapes, sizes and colours! Depending on the season, I might chance upon Anjous (red and green), Bosc, Forelles, Seckels, Korean pears, Bartletts and so on. My, my. I get excited whenever I spot a new variety of fruit in the supermarket aisle.

"Sugar" bowl

Brandy caramel vanilla poached pears tart

I realised that I'm a simple girl. Erm, I meant I have simple tastes, not that I'm simple simple. I mean, gimme any common fruit and I'll be happy. While I do love my berries (raspberries especially!), and sweet juicy cherries, these fruits arent' cheap in Singapore as we import them from other countries. However, I do love my apples, oranges and pears too. Though seen as everyday fruits, I believe that simplicity works wonders for these sturdier fruits that keep well even after a few weeks in the fridge.

Poached pear tart with brandy caramel sauce

Ice cream fever

Ever since we discovered that there was an ice cream machine at home. I just knew (and I was right!) that there was going to be tubs of homemade ice cream(s) in the house, anytime, anyday.

In fact, since the Sis is sort of on an ice cream craze, she's been putting it to full use (making up for the lost time perhaps?) by churning out flavours every few days or so.Yes, I'm talking about an ice cream kingdom here baby. Well, she does make half the quantity of whatever recipe she has on hand, so she gets to experiment with more flavours (and thus explaining the tubs of ice cream residing in our freezer...).

In fact, I can't remember preparing any ice creams myself anymore since she's taken over, and the last two flavours that I remember making are these - honey lavender and pear caramel.

Honey lavender ice cream fizz

Pear riesling sorbet

I've just signed up for the Stanchart 2010 yesterday. Though I was trying hard to persuade the colleagues to join the 21k with me, the girls decided to sign up for the 10k instead, and so I'm kinda on my own. Well, like my sister (the pro that she is that had signed for the 42(!)k) said in reply to me whining about no one accompanying me, You're your own best pacer. Hope so! Just completed the Adidas Sundown 10k, there's the upcoming Nike Shape 10k in July, I'll be doing loads of running every week from now for training. That will hopefully help in my healthier lifestyle plans hey?

So anyway, a while ago, I was supposed to have dinner with one of my fave girlfriend in town, and everywhere was packed (it was a Friday, no surprise here). We decided on Cedele at Takashimaya cos it looked pretty empty. It was a really good decision I think. The food was pretty good, I had a burger and my friend had a pasta. The burger was super - juicy (I hate it when restaurants serve dried up patties and call that a burger) and moist and flavourful, paired with a lovely soft foccacia. I enjoyed every single bite of my burger. When we walked by the desserts display to get to our seats, I knew that I was definitely going to get dessert after dinner. We were deciding among the cheesecakes and cakes, when I saw the icecream counter. Boy. We were instantly sold.

Pear Riesling Sorbet

Scraps from here and there

An avid baker would most likely have leftovers scraps from all over the place. You know what I'm talking about...those scraps of extra dough, the bits of chopped nuts and chocolates, the wee portion of creams or frangipanes or buttercreams, etc etc. That is when the baker's best friend would be, the freezer. The bigger the better I say, to store not only the leftovers, but also prepared goods that can be frozen (think muffins, homemade cookie doughs, freshly churned ice-creams).

I had leftover poached pears in the week I made the Poire D'Eve, I was thinking what should I do with them. So I opened up my freezer, poked around a bit for inspiration, and came up with my own concoction. I used leftover almond tart dough, I made up a fresh batch of almond frangipane (just because the only other frangipane in the fridge was pistachio, and I have doubts that it will mesh with the flavours I had in mind), topped it with sliced poached pears and chopped up some leftover pistachios for some colour. There, I had a dessert ready.

 Almond frangipane poached pears tart

Poire D'Eve

Following my success with the matcha opera, I wanted to try my hand at making other layered desserts. Who else should I turn to but my favourite site, Tartelette. I've bookmarked most of her recipes but the one that I decided to make was this. I was in the mood for fruits. And lately, pears are on my mind alot, they are sweet, and cheap, and plentiful. When I dropped my the supermart and saw those tiny Honey Belle pears from New Zealand, I immediately took a box and place it into my grocery basket. No need to think what I should do with them first. I can easily go online and check my bookmarks for inspiration. And when I did, it was surely the Poire D'Eve that I must do. Poached pears, and crunchy hazalnut biscuit base? I'm in.

Poire D'Eve

Seckel Pear Tarts

Upon looking at this, I was so tempted to make something similar straight away. However, there was just this one tiny little problem. I couldnt find special pears in the supermart. All I could see were the normal plain old green Bartletts and the brown Korean/China pears.

Well. I was not that out of luck. It so happens that pears are seasonal (so are most fruits actually, you would say, and yes I know), and they are in season during the later part of the year. So when I actually saw a variety of USA pears in the supermart a month ago, boy was I delighted.

I was debating on which type to get, the Bosc? Green Anjou? Red Anjou? There was just no competition when my eyes found these...

Seckel pears

Pear banana walnuts muffins

Let me tell you more about these lovely muffins. I think that the pear is an often overlooked fruit for baking muffins. The common choices are banana, chocolate(fine, it's not a fruit but it is a popular choice!), apple, blueberries or raspberries. Yet, the humble pear is a really good fruit to use in baked goods cos they have a subtle light fragrance that heightens the finished product. If you get what I mean. The pears also soften considerably after baking so it doesn't matter if the pears are still not yet fully ripe. Add some chopped walnuts for the crunch factor, well, I think I've found a pretty healthy muffin recipe! (: