My latest cooking experiment: pear and cardamom almondine courtesy of Sarah (another with the patience and understanding of a beekeeper’s wife). I was testing out with the amazingly complex Thermomix that has been languishing on the worksurface until friend, Joan, dedicated a day to explaining it to me. A couple of buttons, a timer and a dial turned basic ingredients into the makings of this utterly delicious dessert, without a trace of wheat. Rosemary, something for you!
100g caster sugar
100 g butter, softened.
100 g ground almonds.
Half teaspoon cardamon seeds.
1 teaspoon cornflour.
1 egg.
2 pears, cored, quartered and each slice halved length-ways.
A drizzle of honey.
Preheat oven to 180C, Gas 4 and lightly butter an 8 inch loose-bottomed tin.
Cream butter and sugar.
Mix in ground almonds, cardamom and cornflour followed by the egg.
Place mix in tin and arrange pear slices, peel-side down, before drizzling with honey.
Cook 25-35 minutes until the edges are firming, the middle has risen and reached at least 90C.
My Tips:
Instead of or in addition to the honey, top with 20g flaked almonds once the tart has cooked for about 20 minutes and return to the oven.
We also succeeded with a basic Hollandaise sauce to go with the last of this year’s asparagus – beyond me to stir egg yolks and butter etc in a pan over heat without producing scrambled eggs. The Thermamix did it all and kept the temperature accurate. More experiments to come …
(no picture, it all got eaten too fast!)