Pear and salted caramel squares

While you are reading this, I'm off enjoying the last few precious days of my annual leave entitlement this year. And doing it in great company as one of my bestest friends in the world is visiting. We are probably sitting somewhere enjoying afternoon tea. Or doing something else, but most likely it's very much food related. So I didn't want you to be without some goodies as well, hence sharing this recipe which I made a while ago, but it just got stuck in the queue of things to post.

A while ago I posted not one, but two recipes for salted caramel. As much as I love salted caramel, I didn't make it just to eat it with a spoon straight from the jar (although a large amount of the caramel did suffer that fate). I actually made it for these amazing pear squares, which I have adapted from a recipe for Apple Pie Bars from Sally's Baking Addiction. I used pear as that was what I happened to take out of the freezer. Note to self, frozen apple and pear look very similar if they aren't labelled appropriately. I have learned my lesson, and have been much more diligent with my labelling pen and masking tape this year. But this time it turned out to be a very lucky coincidence as the squares turned out really good.

Pear and Salted Caramel Squares (makes 16 squares):
Crust:
115 g unsalted butter, melted
50 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
125 g all purpose flour

Pear filling:
about 2 cups of cubed pear (if using frozen, defrost and drain well before using)
1-2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg, cloves or ground ginger depending on preference (or a bit of each...)
(optional: a tbsp or two of stewed pear)

Crumble:
40g oats
70 g muscovado sugar (I prefer light to dark for this bake)
30 g all purpose flour
60 g butter
home made salted caramel

The Howto:
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C (300 degrees F). Line a 8x8 in (20x20 cm) baking tin with parchment paper. Prepare the crust by mixing all ingredients but the flour, and then adding flour, mixing only enough to get a smooth dough. Press into the baking tin, and bake for 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, prepare the filling and crumble. For the filling, mix the pear with the spices. You could add sugar if you want to, but I think it was perfect without any added sugar. To prepare the crumble mix oats, sugar and flour in a bowl. Cut the butter into cubes, and rub it into the oat and flour mix until you get a consistency of coarse sand.

When the crust has baked, increase the oven temperature to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F). Spread the stewed pears and then pear chunks in an even layer onto the crust, and top with crumble. Bake for another 30-35 minutes until the crumble is golden brown.

Let cool completely, first in room temperature and then for at least 2 hours in the fridge. Drizzle with salted caramel and cut into 16 squares.

The Verdict:
I have already made these bars twice, that's how good they are. I'm sure the original version with apples is amazing, but I think my pear one worked really well, and as I said, I omitted the sugar from the filling as I didn't want them to be overly sweet. Together with the delicious home made salted caramel they make such a perfect combination. I enjoyed the squares best when room temperature, but they were also good when eaten warm with some vanilla ice cream. I was going to put some of them into the freezer, but not all too surprisingly there weren't any left when I was going to freeze them.

Pear and chocolate pudding

Today I passed a milestone, less than 20 days left to go in my current job. 19 days to be exact. 152 working hours. Including lunch breaks. This is where the doubt sets in. Did I make the right decision? What if the new job is even more horrid? The new job is further away and significantly less money. Should I just have tried to ride out the worries and problems in my current job? Maybe it would have gotten better? One thing I know for sure is I will miss my colleagues very much. I have been incredibly lucky throughout my career, most of my best friends have started out as colleagues. And the best thing about my current job is definitely all the people I have the joy and privilege to work with. Some have become good friends, and I hope leaving my job doesn't mean leaving them all behind.

So what better way to drown all your worries and fears than to cook a nice hearty and delicious pud. We still have a ridiculous amount of pears in the freezer. Our beautiful pear tree produced so many perfect pears this autumn, I could not get enough. Too bad pears don't keep very well as they are, as I loved to snack on our tasty and perfect pears. Nigella's chocolate and pear pudding was the first hit that came up when I googled pear dessert or something along those lines. To me pear and chocolate go together well, so I had to give it a try.

Pear and chocolate pudding by Nigella Lawson (serves 6-8):
830 grams pear halves in juice (2 cans) 
125 g plain flour
25 g cocoa powder
125 g caster sugar
150 g soft butter (plus extra for greasing)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

The howto:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and grease a 22 cm square oven proof dish. Drain the pears and place in the bottom of the dish. I used pears from the freezer, thawing them and then placing the rather limp pear bits at the bottom of the dish. Using a food processor, mix all the ingredients until a batter forms. I don't have a food processor, so I just mixed it all up with my handheld mixer. I also didn't have any cocoa powder, so I added 25 g more flour, and melted 60 g dark chocolate in the microwave and added to the batter. Pour the batter on top of the pears and bake for about 30 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes, cut and serve with custard or ice cream.

The verdict:
I had a slight problem as the frozen pears gave off much more liquid than I would expect tinned pears would do, so I had to bake my pudding a bit longer. I think I slightly overbaked the pudding, as only a very small region in the centre of the pudding remained gooey. I think baking it according to instructions would have produced a pudding that was a bit more moist and gooey. But this was still a really great recipe, the pears and chocolate go so well together. And it was balanced well by the cold ice cream. I will definitely make this again, and I have stocked up on cocoa powder, so I can stick to the recipe next time. And maybe throw in a handful of chocolate chips for good measure.

Pear and apple butter

I can't believe how much food we have already received from our garden in the short three months we have lived here. First there was the cherries and raspberries. And then of course the tomatoes, which still haven't quite finished, although these days we get one or two tomatoes a day compared to dozens and dozens at peak season. Then there were the gooseberries and of course all the herbs. And plums, some of them ripening so fast we missed out completely. There has been the odd fig and a few strawberries. And the wonder of growing our own cucumbers, that was such a thrill for me. We also managed to rescue a few courgettes from the greedy mouths of the slugs. And did I mention the grapes? The grapes are so good, really sweet and juicy. We need to read up on what to do with the vines though, as they didn't produce that many grapes, maybe we didn't take care of them correctly. And now we are moving towards the last of the garden produce for the season, the apples and pears. The pear tree is literally heavy with fruit, and what beautiful fruit! All perfectly formed pears, the kind you see in the store. Large, juicy and flawless. Unfortunately the apples aren't doing quite as well, they have clearly had some disease or parasite as almost every apple is full of dark spots and the insides of the apple have gone bad. 

I have been agonising about how to store all our produce as we were completely out of freezer space. We ordered a new freezer over a month ago, but it was out of stock with the manufacturer, so we had to wait for quite a while. Luckily it arrived last weekend, right towards the end of the plum season, so we got a small bit of the plum crop stored in the freezer. This weekend, after some rather heavy wind, we had a lot of windfall, both from the apple and pear tree. The culinary consultant brought quite a pile of fruit into the kitchen. Although our apples don't look very good, we decided to rescue what we could from them and use all the good bits for some apple and pear butter. I decided I want to store my butter in the freezer, that way it will keep for quite a few months, and you don't have to worry about canning and sterilising jars and other fuss like that. It was actually much easier than I had expected, with minimal fuss apart from the time-consuming peeling and dicing the fruit.

Pear and apple butter:
1 kg fruit (I used about half pears, half apples)
1.5 cups water
1/2 cup sugar (or to taste)
1 cinnamon stick
8 cloves
(the second batch I made also had 2 star anises to mix it up a bit)

The howto:
Peel, core and dice the fruit. Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan, cover with a lid and bring to a boil. Cook for about 15 minutes until the fruit starts to soften, and then remove the lid. Let cook for 1-1/2 hours, using a potato masher to mash the fruit while it cooks. Cook until the butter has reached your desired consistency, taking care to stir more often towards the end of the cooking time as the butter starts to thicken. I also kept gradually turning the heat lower and lower as the sauce thickened. Let cool, and pick out the cloves and cinnamon stick. If you want a smooth butter, use a food processor. Dispense into containers. Freeze. In my hands, this recipe was enough to fill 4 small and 2 medium freezer jars with a cup or so left over to enjoy immediately.

The verdict:
Given that I had no real recipe and made everything up on the spot, the product turned out not only good but really delicious. I spooned quite a bit of the butter right into my mouth while cooking it. The amount of spice is just right, enough to give a bit of complexity to the flavours but not too much to overwhelm the apple and pear. And the scent was fantastic, all that apple and pear and spice. Although this will keep for a few months in the freezer, I don't think it will stay there for that long. I can imaging this would be perfect with oatmeal or yoghurt in the morning or with ice cream as pudding. This is a really efficient way to use up a large amount of fruit and still store it without taking too much space, while retaining and concentrating all those wonderful flavours of the sweet fruit.

Card of the day:
I made these cards a while ago, but they seem very autumn-y to me, so I thought they would be perfect for this post. I started by inking the background with Tim Holtz distress inks using ink blending foam. I used the Tim Holtz script stamp and stamped several times to fill the card using Walnut Stain Distress ink. I then stamped the Hobbycraft Tree or Thistle stamp in Black Soot in the middle of the card. I finished by spraying with Perfect Pear mist and matted onto random scrap pieces of paper or cardstock I had lying around and then attached to kraft cardstock. I really like the tri-coloured backgrounds, I think they turned out really nice.

Tarte tatin

If you happened to read my recent post on kale frittata, you know I finally bought myself a cast iron skillet. It's one of those things I have dreamed about for a long time, but it took me  a long time to buy, as I thought I wouldn't have room for it. And to be honest, I don't have any extra room anywhere in my apartment. But I bought one of the small ones, so it doesn't take up that much space. And even if it does, who cares, because it's so cute and pretty and shiny. And above all great for cooking. Best steaks ever. The brand of the skillet is Lodge, and on my recent trip to SF, I found so many different types of cast iron cookware from this manufacturer that I would have loved to bring home. Particularly, I fell in love with their handle-less skillets, which were about single serving size and would have been great for direct to table cooking. Too bad the airlines pose weight restrictions on the luggage, otherwise I would have bought a few of those to take home with me. So I comforted myself by thinking I would get some from Amazon. Turns out I can't find that specific skillet anywhere online, not even on the Lodge website. So now I'm a little bit heartbroken.

My true inspiration for buying a cast iron skillet was my desire to make Tarte Tatin. I watched the bakers on the Great British Bakeoff making more or less successfull Tarte Tatins, and I really wanted to try it out. Despite the more exotic variations out there, such as banana or tomato, I decided to go for a traditional apple and pear variety. Partly because I wanted my first Tarte Tatin to be a classic one, and partly because I still had a bunch of apples and pears left over from my grocery delivery extravaganza a while ago, which really needed to be used up asap.

I have read from several blogs how hard the Tarte Tatins are to make, so I was feeling very insecure embarking on my TT journey. I read all the recipes I could get my hands on and all the comments sections if there were any. The recipes I ended using as a basis for my attempt were this one form BBC food and this one from Jamie Oliver. And the recipes from the Great British Bakeoff cookbook. You can actually find a few of the GBB recipes here if you want to have a look at them. And looks like I wasn't the only one inspired by GBB to make some TT, here is the blog of a fellow inspired baker. She even made her own rough puff, which I am very impressed with.

In theory, making a TT sounded really easy. Just add sugar and water, cook it without touching it at all, dump on the fruit and pastry, and bake. Ok, I guess I can do that, although the instructions for making the caramel were in general very vague. "Cook until a beautiful golden colour". Ok then, thanks for those specific instructions. Also, "don't stir the caramel while cooking as that will make it crystallise". Ok, fair enough, but how am I supposed to mix it when it only turns out golden in one quadrant of the pan? Given that I really had no idea of what I was doing, the end result turned out really great. I suggest you go through the process in your head once or twice before starting though. Just so that you have figured out each step in advance. And make sure you have all your ingredients all measured up and chopped and ready to go. Then just do it! I did cheat by using ready made puff pastry, as I thought the stress of making your own caramel would be enough of a challenge for my first TT.

Tarte tatin for a small (20cm) cast iron skillet (serves 6):
100 g caster sugar
3 tbsp water
1 apple
1 pear
1 lemon
1 tsp vanilla syrup

50 g butter
250 g puff pastry

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Roll out the puff pastry and cut a circle which is a bit bigger than your skillet. I used a plate which is slightly bigger than my skillet as a template. Slice the pear and the apple (peel first if you like). Grate the zest from the lemon, and also squeeze any juice you can get from it. Mix the fruit with the lemon juice/zest mix. Add vanilla syrup.

Make the caramel: put water and sugar in an oven proof skillet and heat on low until the sugar has dissolved into the water. Increase temperature to medium and cook until caramel turns golden brown. Watch it closely, as it will turn from light brown to burned very quick. Don't stir the caramel while it's boiling as this will cause it to crystallise.

Take the skillet off the heat, and add the fruit to the pan, making a beautiful pattern of the layer of fruit which goes on the bottom. Be careful, because the caramel is extremely hot! The rest of the fruit wont be visible, so you can just pile it on without arranging it. Cut butter into small pieces and add on top of the fruit. Cover with puff pastry, and tuck in the edges of the pastry to the edges of the pan, but be careful as the pan is really hot. Make a few holes in the pastry with a fork, and bake until puff pastry is golden, about 25 minutes. The caramel and fruit juices will bubble around the edges of the puff pastry while baking. Let cool for a few minutes in the skillet, then turn over onto a plate which is bigger than the skillet. Place plate against the skillet, and press the plate against the skillet when turning the plate-skillet combo. All recipes suggested wearing heat proof gloves when turning the tarte, as the caramel is really hot and can burn you if you get it onto your skin. I didn't have any problems with any overflowing or exploding caramel, but I guess it's a better safe than sorry moment.

Water and sugar added to the pan.

When the sugar has melted, up the temperature to medium,
and the mixture will start bubbling like this.

The caramel is starting to turn golden. This was when I ran into trouble,
as my cooker clearly has uneven heat distribution, and particularly
the lower left hand quadrant turned very dark quickly whereas other parts
of the caramel were still white. And I wasn't allowed to stir the caramel
so that it wouldn't crystallise. Quite a pickle. I took the caramel off
almost immediately after this picture was taken.

Add fruit and chunks of butter.

Last but not least, add the puff on top, and tuck in the edges.

The verdict:
The tricky part about a Tarte Tatin is the caramel. I seriously had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I wasn't supposed to stir it while it was cooking as this could cause it to crystallise. In all episodes of GBB, they cooked the caramel until it was quite a dark golden brown. My caramel cooked very unevenly as you can see from the pictures, and it started to get a funny burned sugar smell in one part of the pan while still too light elsewhere. I figured some sort of compromise was in order and took it off before the burnt part got too dark and bitter smelling. Also, if I wasn't imagining it, the caramel did crystallise a bit when I added the fruit on top of it. However, clearly baking it in the oven did something to return the caramel to a smooth state, there were no crystals anywhere to be seen in the finished product. And after letting the tarte rest in the skillet for about 10 minutes after baking, it turned out very beautiful, and didn't stick at all. Might be beginner's luck, as I have read many bitter comments about TTs that have refused to get out of the pan when turned. I guess if you burn your caramel that is what happens. Also, some of the tips said you shouldn't let the tarte cool before turning it, as the fruit will stick to the pan. 

Interesting enough, it looks like there are two methods for making caramel. One is the water and sugar method I have used here, and which has been demonstrated by Mary Berry in the GBB. And if Mary says so, that's what I'll do. But some recipes seem to use another method, where the sugar is melted into butter. I have read quite a few comments about people having trouble with that method, but also seen several very successful results, so I guess both methods are perfectly valid. Not sure if I'll ever be brave enough to try the other one now that I know I can make this one work. Now my mind is just jumping from idea to idea what other flavours to do next.

Pear, ginger and chocolate scones

I have a bit of a disastrous track record when it comes to sweet scones. Cheese scones, those I can do quite well, and have gone through a number of recipes to find my favourite. Which funnily enough doesn't contain butter at all, it's a vegetable oil based recipe. But it was my favourite out of several that I tried. And some day I'll get around to post it here. Although, truth be told, my absolute favourite cheese scone I have ever eaten is at our workplace cafeteria. Raisin scones there are nothing special, I have had much better ones at cafes and tearooms around the UK. But oh mine, those cheese scones. They are fluffy and big and absolutely beautiful. Although, it will remain a mystery to me why some days they are the fluffy and amazing things they are, and other days, they are just hard lumps of dough you could use to kill somebody. I can see no other explanation for this than two different bakers. But there doesn't seem to be any kind of pattern to which days you get the really great five star cheese scones and which days you get the hard lumps. Which was ok back in the day when I ate them every day, there were good days and bad days. But now, when I only have them once in a blue moon, I'm really disappointed if it's hard dry lumpy scone day on the day I have allowed myself the indulgence of all those extra calories and carbs.

But this post is not about cheese scones. This is about fruit scones, which I have had notoriously bad luck with. Last time I attempted a sweet scone, it turned into a horrible disaster. Of all days, it was my birthday, and I had decided to spoil myself with some berry scones for breakfast. I was making the batter according to the instructions, and despite it being a bit on the runny side, I got the scones made and into the oven. Ten minutes later I had a peek, and the scones had not changed colour at all, which I found strange. But this was the first time I was making the recipe, so I thought maybe it's just some weird thing with this recipe that it bakes really slowly. The scones had started to flatten in the oven, forming more of one giant scone flatbread instead of pretty individual scones. After another ten minutes I found it very odd that the scones still didn't look at all baked, and there was no smell of baking strawberry and blueberry scones in my flat. Well, after a while I figured out that I had only turned on the fan in the oven, but not the heat. A bit hard to cook scones in room temperature. When I finally figured this out, I didn't have individual scones left, but just one big flat scone. It was edible, but not particularly delicious. So I decided to stay away from fruit or berry scones in the future.

I'm still struggling with my overload of fruit from my grocery shopping order last week. Particularly, my pears are starting to look like they rather be used up now or not at all. And totally coincidentally (I swear!!!) I ran into this recipe from Smitten Kitchen on Pinterest. And if there is something in you kitchen which is about to go off, and you happen to just stumble upon a recipe which contains said ingredient, you are pretty much obligated by the baking gods to try it out. Especially if you have all the ingredients at home, which is very unusual for me. So no need for a visit to the grocery store, I could just get home from work and start baking. With the small added complication of actually having to go to the gym in between. 

I made some small alterations to the recipe, such as not roasting the pears before using them as they were starting to be rather ripe, and didn't need to get any softer in my opinion. Also, the original recipe didn't contain any ginger, but I just bought a pack of candied ginger, and couldn't wait to be able to try it out in a recipe. I also switched cream for skimmed milk, as I didn't have any cream at home.

Pear and chocolate scones (adapted from Smitten Kitchen, makes 6-8 scones):
190 g plain flour
50 g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg (plus one optional egg for the egg wash)
1/4 cup milk
85 g butter in small cubes
50 g dark chocolate chips or chunks
3-4 big pieces of crystallised ginger
2 pears

One scone (1/8 of the recipe) contains 250 kcal (12 g fat, 32 g total carbs and 4 g protein).

The howto:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Chop the pears into small cubes. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt a bowl. Add egg, milk and butter, and mix using a electric or handheld mixer. Add chocolate, finely chopped ginger and pears and mix. The dough was so thick that I found it easiest to use my hands for mixing. Pat out on a sheet of parchment paper into a circle, and cut into six or eight wedges depending on the size of scones you want. Brush with egg wash if you want to (I couldn't be bothered...), and bake for about 20 minutes for smaller scones and 30 minutes for larger ones. 

The verdict:
I finally managed to make great scones!! I wasn't too hopeful when I had made the dough as it looked a bit strange, but they baked beautifully. I was assured by my culinary consultant that they were exactly as scones should be, crisp and crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. And he should know, he is British, and the Brits do love their scones. They didn't quite rise as much as I would have liked them to, but they were still quite fluffy.

The pear made the scones wonderfully moist and gave the scones great flavour. And the ginger went perfectly together with the pear. The chocolate was a nice addition, but to be perfectly honest, the pear and ginger alone would already have worked great. So if you don't have chocolate, don't worry and just go ahead with the pear and ginger. I was going to eat one scone when I was baking them, and save one for the next day. Good thing I gave the rest of the scones to my culinary consultant, as I know he will be able to eat them in a more responsible fashion, as I ended up eating three straight out of the oven. I just couldn't resist them. I guess my never ending weight loss project is officially on hold again. At least I did an hour at the gym before inhaling the scones. Now I'm trying to convince myself I really shouldn't bake anything else this week, but I have two over ripe bananas on the table. And everyone knows over ripe bananas only mean one thing... banana bread! 

Portion control crumble

Crumble is one of those things which you just can't stop eating. I simply cannot make a full size serving of crumble, because I will just eat it all. Last fall when I was visiting my sister, she made a huge serving of apple crumble with frozen yoghurt, and we ended up eating it all. It's the perfect autumn pudding. First of all, fruits are at their best. And it's cold enough outside to warrant a warm dessert. And the combination of hot crumble and melting, gooey vanilla ice cream is divine. Funnily enough, a friend of a friend has this thing that you just can't mix hot and cold components in a dessert. I wholeheartedly disagree. I love how the ice cream becomes almost creamlike when it melts onto the hot fruit. You could serve it with warm custard if you prefer. I recently went (on two consecutive weekends) to this amazing restaurant which is a mere five minute walk from my place called The Oak Bistro. Definitely one of my favourite restaurants in Cambridge. So far everything I have eaten there has been absolutely top notch, trying to pick my personal favourite between lobster pasta and pan fried scallops with celeriac purée. I can't make up my mind which was better. But after these two gems, my second favourite was the blackberry and apple crumble. Which was served with warm custard. Very good. But I think after all, my favourite combo is crumble and ice cream. And for once, and I do feel very weird saying this... It has to be vanilla ice cream. Obviously a good brand real vanilla one. Chocolate ice cream has it's place (mostly in my stomach I would argue...) but on this single occasion I will always opt for vanilla ice cream. And the good thing, vanilla ice cream is something I can actually keep in my freezer, as I am very unlikely to eat it all in one sitting. Whereas a tub of Ben and Jerry's has never seen the inside of my freezer, I will eat it from start to finish, as soon as it enters my apartment. And no, I'm not talking about the small single serving tublets. I mean the proper half liter tub. I have absolutely no problem whatsoever to eat it all in one sitting. I do have problems with NOT eating it in one sitting. Well, actually I don't think I have ever even attempted that. If I sink so low that I buy a tub of B&J, I have accepted the ugly truth that it will all be eaten in an instant. Ok, end of confession now. I guess I have quite a few Hail Marys to do after that. Or should I say Hail Ben&Jerrys...

For this crumble, I decided to forgo the usual cinnamon - nutmeg - ginger spice combo, which is absolutely everywhere right now. Yes, obviously a wonderful spice mix which just screams fall and apples. But this time I went for what I think possibly are the two most amazing spices in the whole wide wold: cardamom and vanilla. Vanilla and pear go so well together. Pear is actually such a great fruit, it is so good to eat just as is, it is great in puddings, but it also goes great with savoury dishes, such as this pear, apple and goat's cheese salad. And I wouldn't be surprised if there would be a pear related Friday quickie coming up sometime in the near future (if I happen to have any Fridays off to myself in the near future...). Ok, after yet another absolutely useless ramble about absolutely nothing of substance, finally on to the good part.

Apple and pear crumble (serves 2):
15 g muscovado sugar (I used dark because I love the molasses flavour)
25 g rolled oats
15 g wheat flour (I used whole wheat)
22 g butter (1.5 tbsp)
1 apple
1 pear
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp vanilla paste

Pear, apple, vanilla and cardamom. Mmmm, you
 already know this is going to awesome.

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Start by making the crumble. Melt butter, and mix with the oats, flour and sugar. Chop apple and pear into small pieces. I couldn't be bothered to peel them as the peel goes nice and soft during the cooking, but you can obviously do that if you prefer. Divide fruits into two single serving ramekins, sprinkle half a teaspoon of cardamom and half a teaspoon of vanilla paste on each of the ramekins and mix. Spoon crumble on top. Bake for about 30 minutes. Serve warm with custard or ice cream.

The verdict:
There is one single secret to a good crumble in my humble opinion. Butter. You need to have enough butter in the crumble mix. There is no point in trying to make it healthy by making it low fat, as the crumble just won't get that nice crumbly texture. And crumble without crumbly crumble on top is obviously quite a disappointment. I rather cut down a bit on sugar and make it more healthy that way. After all, it's not fat that makes us fat, it's sugar that makes us fat. I guess with the sweet apples and pears combined with the wonderful warmth of the vanilla and cardamom, you could probably even make the crumble free from added sugar. But not fat free. And the only fat that will bring not only the right texture but also the right flavour is definitely organic butter. No substitutes. I have started to always buy organic butter. I keep imagining it tastes better and behaves nicer when baking than regular butter. It's probably an illusion, but I use so little butter that the difference in the price is not a dealbreaker for me. In general, I try to buy as much organic as possible. Very unscientific, I know, as there are no scientifically proven benefits of organic produce versus non-organic ones, and the amounts of nutrients in the food are the same in both groups. But somehow it just makes me feel like it's cleaner food. I guess I'm one of those suckers who have fallen for the brainwashing campaigns. Although I have to admit, also the price of food makes quite a difference to me, so it's the difference in price between an organic product and it's non-organic counterpart which in the end determine which one I'm getting.

This pudding was something I whipped up last Sunday night when I was craving something sweet, but didn't have enough calories left in my daily allowance to make it something really unhealthy. It was super-quick to prepare and absolutely delicious. After having quite a bit of puddings with warm fall spices like cinnamon and ginger, I thought the vanilla-cardamom mix made a nice change. And as I already mentioned, they are probably my two favourite spices in the whole wide world. Ideally I would always use vanilla bean seeds when cooking, but for financial reasons that's just not viable. But I have found a great substitute which I like very much, it's a thick syrup type of thing called Vanilla Paste. Of course it's not perfect as it has some ingredients I would prefer to avoid, but I'm rationalising it as the amounts of paste I'm using for any single dish is very small. Also, the paste has some added sugar so it's great for baking and desserts. But I'm very jealous of how people who travel to exotic countries (wherever vanilla beans grow, I have to admit I have no clue) and bring back huge containers full of vanilla pods that they bought for virtually pennies. I wonder if that is just urban legends, or if such places actually exist. And if they do, I hope I will get to travel there some day, as the price of vanilla pods is just ridiculous. Especially for someone who wouldn't mind using it in the quantities that I like. Actually, I don't I have bought any vanilla pods since I discovered the vanilla paste. That's how good it is.