Vessy's day » pears

Saffron poached pears with oat cookies

Vessy — Sat, 08 Oct 2016 12:29:03 +0000

If you wonder how great these poached pears are… let me tell you, they are simply amazing! So flavorful and so easy to prepare. Poached pears take only 30 minutes to prepare, same as the oat cookies. You can easily put the cookies in the oven while you are working on the pears, which saves you a lot of time. Oat cookies not only go great with the pears, but they are also very delicious on their own. They would be a great breakfast on the go or an afternoon power snack.
I got inspired for this dessert, during our summer vocation in Greece this year. We stayed at the dreamy Ikos Olivia resort. That place is amazing in so many ways, but most of all it’s super kids friendly. Since we had our baby boy…we have been adjusting to the change and realizing that we have to look for a vocation place that will meet our child’s needs above ours. So, that’s how we found Ikos Olivia and we all loved it. It’s the best family place I’ve been to, so far. If you are planning to go to Greece soon, just check it out, you might like it. And that’s where I had my first saffron poached pear. It was served with vanilla ice-cream and crumble base, as I faintly remember. The saffron poached pear stuck on my mind, thou, it was so amazing, that I decided to try and make it myself. It’s not the same as the one I had at the hotel, of course, but I love my interpretation of that 5* dessert and hope you will love it too.

Ingredients for the crunchy cookies:
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, cooled to room temperature
90 grams (3 oz) of old-fashioned rolled oats
30 grams (1 oz) all purpose flour (or use any other flour of your choice)
50 grams (1,8 oz) shaved almonds
20 grams (0,70 oz) finely crushed almonds
A pinch of salt

Ingredients for the poached pears:
4 pears, cleaned and peeled, whole
500 grams (18 oz) sugar
1 liter (2 pints) water
A pinch of Saffron
A few Cardamom pods
1 vanilla pod

To make the cookies:
Preheat your oven to 180C. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl add honey, vanilla extract, melted butter and stir to completely combine. Add oats, flour, shaved and crushed almonds and a pinch of salt. Stir to combine.
Now, to shape dough into round cookies/pates you may use a round cookie cutter or a dessert ring. Place the ring on the cookie sheet and fill with a tablespoon or two of the dough. Use the spoon to press down the dough tightly into the ring. Remove the ring and repeat these steps until dough is up.
Bake cookies for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned on around the edges. Remove cookies out of the oven and let cool to room temperature. At first, cookies will be soft, but once they cool off they will harden and turn into these crisp, crunchy oat cookies.
You will make about 6-8 large cookies out of this dough. Keep left over cookies in the fridge.

To make the pears and saffron syrup:
In a large enough saucepan to fit 4 pears, combine water, sugar, saffron, cardamom and vanilla pods and bring to the boil. Add pears and cook for about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the ripeness of your pears. Check them using a small knife to see if they are ready. If you are using a very ripe pears, they will cook quickly. Be careful not to overcook the pears. You want to have them soft, but still in perfect shape.
Once ready, remove them from the pot and set aside to cool to room temperature.
Continue to cook the syrup until it thickens – more or less, depending on your preferences.
Strain through a fine mesh and set aside to cool to room temperature.
To serve: arrange cookies on a plate then add one pear over each cookie and sprinkle them with a little bit of the saffron syrup.
***Keep left over syrup in the fridge. In case it hardens, just reheat to use for another serving or recipe.

Chocolate clafoutis with pears

Vessy — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 12:17:59 +0000

This is my interpretation of the classic French dessert clafoutis.
Clafoutis is usually prepared with black cherries and pancake-like batter.
My recipe on the other hand includes pears and chocolate – one of the best combinations of fruit and chocolate. This is one of those very simple but yet impressive desserts, which sound complected and hard to prepare, but I can assure you that this is just an illusion. Recipe is ready in three simple steps – melting the chocolate, mixing the batter (in only one bowl) and baking – simple as that, but you will never believe how delicious this is! You can serve it as dessert or brunch or even breakfast, it is so delicious that you will want to eat the whole thing by yourself .
Enjoy!

Ingredients (20 cm. round baking dish):
180 grams (6 oz) chocolate
3 medium eggs
185 ml. milk
1 tea spoon cinnamon
1 tea spoon pure vanilla extract
50 grams (1,80 oz) powder sugar
60 grams (2 oz) flour
3 ripe pears, sliced
Butter for greasing

Preheat your oven to 180C (350F), fan-forced.
Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Let it cool to room temperature.
In a large bowl add the eggs and lightly beat with a whisk. Add the milk, cinnamon, vanilla extract and sugar. Mix well. Add the chocolate and mix the mixture with a hand-held blender until it is nice and smooth. Gently fold in the flour and mix with a rubber spatula – make sure to not over-mix the batter. Even if you see a few lumps, don’t worry, they will blend with the rest of the batter during the baking.
Grease your baking dish with a little bit of butter or flavorless oil.
Pour the batter in the baking dish. Arrange the slices of pears on top of the batter. Do not press them or try to push them deeper in the batter. They will sink a bit during the baking.
Bake for about 40 minutes. When you take out the cloufutis out of the oven you will notice that is a little bit wobbly in the center – that’s how you want the clafoutis to be. Leave it to cool until warm (it will firm up a bit), dust with cocoa powder (optional) and serve immediately.
You can serve it with whipped cream or ice-cream.
NOTE: It is better to use a heavy dish with thicker sides and bottom, because it will retain the heat from the oven very well and your dessert will bake more evenly.

Brownies with white chocolate and pears

Vessy — Thu, 23 Oct 2014 17:38:32 +0000

I am sharing with you another great brownie recipe. This one is on my list of favorite recipes – it is moist, soft, chocolaty, sweet but not too sweet and has this amazing pear flavor…. (add different fruit if you prefer).

Enjoy!

Ingredients:
200 grams dark chocolate, chopped
200 grams butter, cut into a small pieces
3 eggs
280 grams brown sugar
75 grams cocoa powder
150 grams all purpose flour
3 pears (cut in half, lengthwise)
Additional chocolate – white, chopped
Any type of nuts (peanuts, almonds, pecans – chopped)
1 tea spoon vanilla extract

In a heatproof bowl add the butter and the chocolate.
Place the bowl over a small saucepan, filled with a little bit of water (make sure the bowl does not touch the water). Put the saucepan over medium heat until the butter and chocolate melt, stirring occasionally. Leave the mixture to cool to room temperature.
Preheat your oven to 180C (350 F) and grease a 24 sm. round baking pan.
In a large bowl whisk together with an electric mixer the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy. Add the vanilla extract and the cooled chocolate mixture.
In another bowl mix together the flour with cocoa powder.
Add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture and gently fold together with a rubber spatula.

Pour the brownie mixture into the prepared pan and sprinkle with the extra chopped chocolate and nuts. Then, gently arrange the pears on top, facing down with the cut side.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until done on the outside and moist on the inside (check with a toothpick – the brownie should not be well done baked like a regular loaf, but rather raw-ish on the inside; keep in mind that it may look too raw, but when it cools off the brownie will thickens a lot).
Leave to cool off completely before you cut and serve it.