Pear Deals

Has Autumn arrived yet? It seems Summer is fading away with its heat, leaving us nothing but debris of latest harvests. Berries are a long gone season by now, well, from our garden anyway. Black Boy peaches have been bottled and enjoyed. Some late peaches are still green and slowly maturing when there's not enough heat to boost them to ripen, not sure when they are.

Our garden is such a mess with kikuya grass growing knee-high in my flower beds and around my roses beds. This is a hard grass with shoots can dig deep into the earth and one way to get rid of them in the garden is digging them out, otherwise they'll be back before I've finished the whole beds. It is a hard work, but I want to get everything done before we go to Indonesia in May. If I don't work on it now, I am not sure if I can get everything else done as well.





We're still enjoying nashi (have a look at my latest experiment on nashies) and apple from the orchard while kiwifruits are in awaits to ripen in Winter. For Eating with the Season, I am thinking to send a gluten-free cake experiment I made with pears. I use Borsch pears which have delicate flavour and excellent firmness to be cooked with cakes.





I meant to bake the baby cakes for me too, but when we tested, they failed the muscle test. A little bit disappointed as I had used ingredients which are gluten-free and fresh, but perhaps I shall also consider the combination of them that may work with my body. Anyway, I am still doing baking for my family, although I can't eat the baked goods. I also have been experimenting here and there, to find out which baked goods I can take and which combination of ingredients does not agree with me.

This is my entry for Eating with the Seasons, hosted by Maninas: Food Matters.

Gluten-Free Almond Chocolate Baby Pear Cakes

1 1/2 cups Healtheries Simple Baking Mix
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup almond meal
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 - 1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup rice bran oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 baby pears, peeled, cored, and quartered caramelized lightly with a little butter and brown sugar, set aside

Preheat the oven to 170C. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder in a bowl. Break the eggs in another bowl, whisk with caster sugar, oil, and vanilla extract until well-combined. Pour this mixture into the flour mixture, and fold in, mix well. Pour into 8 pudding moulds or 8-hole Texas muffin tin. Bake for about 25-30 minutes until cooked (after first 15 minutes, insert the quartered pear in each half-baked cake). Serves 8.