Caramelized Pear Cake

Based on a recipe from Epicurious.

Ingredients

• 3 largeish bosc pears, peeled.  One grated, the other two sliced thinly.
• 6tbsp butter
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 1 1/3c flour
• 2/3 c granulated sugar
• 1 1/2tsp cinnamon
• 1tsp baking soda
• 1/2tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1/2c neutral oil
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• zest of one orange

Preheat oven to 350.  In an oven-safe skillet, melt the butter.  When the butter is melted, take it off the heat and add the brown sugar, stirring around.  Then lay the two sliced pears on the skillet in a radial pattern (or however you like).

Meanwhile, combine everything else (including the grated pear) in a separate bowl and stir to combine.  It makes a fairly thick batter.  Pour the batter over the pears in the skillet and throw the whole thing in the oven for 40 minutes.  Take it out when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Thoughts: Fantastic.  Really good.  And fairly easy, although there were a lot of ingredients.  I would say our one complaint was that it's got so much sugar, although I wouldn't say it's too sweet.  It just makes me feel wrong for eating it.  It's really good, though.  I would definitely make this again exactly the same way.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Muscadine Jam

Wow, we're WAY behind.  We've both been so busy lately.  Hopefully we'll start to catch up soon.

Ingredients

• A quart of muscadine grapes
• about 1-2c sugar
• water

First, separate all of the grape skins from the grapes.  This is actually pretty easy - put a slit down the side and pry the skin off.  It comes away pretty easily.  Chop all the skins and set to simmer in a small sauce pan.  In another small sauce pan, start the insides of the grapes simmering.  If you managed to remove all the seeds already, great, otherwise you'll have to strain them later and it's a PAIN.  Anyway, simmer the insides until they're pretty completely broken down and soft, adding water as needed so they don't stick (same goes for the skins).  Now remove the seeds if you haven't already and cook the skin and the insides together with the sugar for another 5 minutes, or at least until the water is mostly cooked off, then put in a food processor and blend until smooth.  Put in a sterile jar and place directly into the fridge.

Thoughts: Although this grape jam was fantastic, Claire and I agree that the distinct muscadine flavor isn't quite there when you boil them for a while.  That said, it's still delicious jam - very clean flavor, probably because there isn't all that HFCS and so forth.  But it was a little disappointing insofar as it didn't have the muscadine flavor.  Probably wouldn't make it again since it was a lot of trouble.

Disaster Index: 3/10