cardamom pear loaf

Hello readers,

Perhaps like me, you've survived the great snowpocalypse that attacked much of North America (yes North America, dear States-side readers. When you see weather systems disappearing beyond the borders of the US on TV, they come here to Canada).  I can't bear the idea of leaving the house, the slushy streets, icy sidewalks, and the mountains of snow to be conquered on every street corner! All I want is cup upon cup of tea, and a little cake to go with it!

Inspired by a recent recipe on Gourmet Live, I devised a (vegan) cardamom pear loaf.  The original recipe is for a molasses cake, and I was intrigued by the method, which required adding boiling water and then freezing the dough to supposedly evenly bake the bread.  It produced a delicious cake, so moist and fluffy, and with only one egg! that I thought it a fine recipe for vegan tweaking.

This bread is so good - it makes two loaves, one for now, one for later, and fills the house with the yummiest scent of cardamom and vanilla baking.

Vegan Cardamom Pear Loaf

Makes 2 loaves

Takes 1 hour (plus freezing time)

1 cup honey

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup + 3 tablespoons canola oil

2 inches of the black innards of a vanilla pod (or 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract)

1/2 tsp ground cardamom (5-6 pods)

2 cups flour

1 cup semolina*

2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3 pears sliced up into little bits

1/2 cup pistachios, toasted and coarsely chopped

1.5 cups boiling water

Toast the pistachios in a toaster oven or the big oven on 250 for 8–10 minutes.  Careful they don't burn!  When they've cooled, coarsely chop them.  If baking bread right away, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grease and flour 2 loaf pans.

In a large bowl, dissolve the sugar in the honey (you may want to melt the honey in the microwave or on the stove).  When dissolved, add oil, vanilla and cardamom, and stir vigorously until it's well-combined.  Add the flour, semolina, baking soda and salt, and stir until the dough resembles course, sandy meal.  Mix in the pears and crushed pistachios.

Add the boiling water and stir, the dough will be runny like pancake batter.

At this point you have two options, to freeze the dough or to not the freeze the dough.  I find that there is no difference between freezing and not freezing the dough in the finished bread.

The loaf on the left was baked yesterday with immediately mixed batter, and the loaf on the right was baked today, from batter that was frozen overnight.  It has a slightly larger crumb, but other than the differences from my pouring a bit more batter into the pan, tastes the same and has (basically) the same texture.

Oh well.  Since this recipe makes enough for 2 loaves, you get a later loaf for when you've eaten all of the first one!

Bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes (a bit more if you have a frozen loaf) until a fork comes out cleanly.  Let cool in the pan, and then turn out and enjoy!

*Semolina is also known as rava or cream of wheat.  It gives the bread an extra little crunch.  If you don't want to use it, you can use another 1.5 cups of flour (3.5 cups flour total).

experimental vegan ginger pistachio pear blondies

I've been trying to become a vegan baker since the betrothed is lactose-intolerant and is allergic to eggs.  He however loves baked treats and eats the conventional ones and gets some mild gastric distress!  Since he isn't vegan, I often use lactose-free milk and substitute almond oil or nut butters for eggs in recipes to make cookies.  This website is a very helpful guide to substitutions.

I thought the blondies I made for the Sugar-fest would be a perfect subject for vegan experimentation since they are dense, and already have fruit and nut flavors, which are key to flavorful substitutions.  I made poached pears the other night, and I thought the leftover poaching liquid* would be smart to use since it would bring additional flavor and be a good liquid replacement for the eggs.  These blondies were delicious, more moist and cake-y than the other ones, but still dense and toothsome.  Like the conventional blondies, we forgot to take a pictures before they were all gone!  Here they are, still in the pan, just out of the oven.  I'm thinking of making a version next week with chocolate chips, dried cherries and almonds.  I like leaving the betrothed with something in the cookie jar when I have to leave town.

Vegan pear pistachio ginger blondies
adapted from the martha stewart recipe
Takes 1 hour
Makes 16 blondie squares

9 tablespoons (1 1/8 sticks) Earth Balance, softened, plus more for pan

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon coarse salt

3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar syrup / pear poaching liquid

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup brunoised pear, 1 ripe but not very soft bosc pear

3/4 cup shelled pistachios, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup coarsely chopped candied ginger

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Butter an 8-inch square pan.  Line with parchment paper, allowing 2 inches to hang over sides.  Butter parchment.

Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.  Mix in pears, ginger and nuts so that they are just coated.

In a separate bowl, beat together Earth Balance and sugar until sort of fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add vanilla and sugar syrup, and mix until combined.  Mix in flour-fruit-nut mixture until combined.

Dump dough into pan and spread evenly.  Bake in the center of the oven for 50 minutes.  It's done when a fork inserted into the middle of the pan comes out clean.  Let cool for about 15 minutes.  Lift the blondies out of the pan onto a cutting board and let cool completely.  Cut into squares.  They are best within three days.

*  The liquid was made by simmering 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar, 4 cups water, 4 pears (halved and cored), 4 crushed cardamom pods, 10 peppercorns, an inch of ginger, sliced, for about 30 minutes.  I can never bring myself to throw such deliciousness away, so I substituted 1/4 cup of poaching liquid for 1/4 cup of the light brown sugar.  Poached pears are one of my favorite winter desserts.  Use those pears that never seem to get soft enough to eat plain, or the ones that are grainy and mealy.

Sweets for the new year

Over the holidays, I stopped in New York to see friends and hosted a party that was an annual tradition my former roommates and I liked to call Sugarfest.  When I lived in New York, we would invite friends over in December, before everyone left town for their families, and make a variety of cookies, cakes and other snacks.  One roommate liked to make her grandmother's pink cake, flavored and colored with maraschino cherries and their juice! Very few people were brave enough to try it, but we always had it.  Like most holiday traditions, our sugar fest was about memories and personal connections to food.  We made lots of familiar treats: peanut butter hershey kiss cookies, seven layer bars, gingerbread men, and all sorts of sugar cookie recipes.

This year, we had a sugar fest in January on my return to New York, and there were new babies, new partners, old friends, and plenty of sweets!  I made the hershey kiss cookies and these delicious pear ginger blondies that I adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe.  They are the third plate back on the right.  I also tried to make a chocolate caramel shortbread cookie, but the caramel didn't set, and I will have to try again before I post a recipe.  It was a delicious mistake, however.  I am also going to try to make a egg-free, lactose free version of these blondies for the betrothed.  Stay tuned!

Pear, Pistachio and Ginger Blondies 

Adapted from Martha Stewart, Holiday Cookies 2005

Makes 25 blondie bites

Takes 1 hour

9 tablespoons (1 1/8 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pan

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon coarse salt

1 cup packed light-brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon Pear Eau-de-Vie (Martha called for vanilla, and I didn't have it, but I did have F.E. Trimbach & Ribeauville Poire William!)

1 cup brunoised pear (Martha called for dried pears, but I didn't have them, and pears are still in season, so I went with fresh bartletts, about 1.  Bruinoise is just a fancy word for chopped into small cubes)

3/4 cup shelled pistachios, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup coarsely chopped candied ginger

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Butter a 9-inch square pan.  Line with parchment paper, allowing 2 inches to hang over sides.  Butter parchment.

Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.  Mix in pears, ginger and nuts so that they are just coated.

In a separate bowl, beat together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add eggs and poire william (or whatever you are using), and mix until combined.  Mix in flour-fruit-nut mixture until combined.

Pour batter into your pan and bake in the center of the oven for 50 minutes.  It's done when a fork inserted into the middle of the pan comes out clean.  Let cool for about 15 minutes.  Lift the blondies out of the pan onto a cutting board and let cool completely.  Cut into bite-size squares.

These blondies were so ginger-y and delicious!  They didn't have a lot of pear flavor, but some tasters were certain they contained cardamom.  There was something intoxicating and fragrant about them.