What to do with pears?

[lbt]

Hi

I have been sharing my lovely crop of courgettes with my neighbours - and have been delighted with a couple of surprises in return. One neighbour gave me a huge bowl of cooking cherries and another gave me a carrier bag of conference type pears.

What can I do with the pears? Ideally I want to get a couple of recipes, so that some can be preserved in some way, and others can used for desserts or anything else.

Would love to hear if anyone has any ideas

[rustylady]

here's one link for you - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on pear recipes | Life and style | The Guardian try googling Pear recipes.

[northepaul]

here's one link for you - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on pear recipes | Life and style | The Guardian try googling Pear recipes.

I have made the pear and almond cake....its scrumptious!!

How about pickling them?

[roitelet]

You could make pear chutney.

[valmarg]

You more or less pipped me to the post with Hugh F-W's Pear and almond pudding, but looking at the recipe we took from the internet, you have a few ingredients missing, ie:-

150g unsalted butter, softened
125g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
75g wholemeal self raising flour
75g ground almonds
A good pinch of cinnamom

For the caremelised pears:-

3 pears (reasonably firm, but not rock hard)
25g unsalted butter
1 tbsp granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 170C. Grease a 20cm diameter springform cake tin and line with baking parchment.
Peel, core and quarter the pears.
Melt 25g of butter in a frying pan large enough to take the pear pieces, over a medium heat. When it's bubbling, add the sugar and stir gently until it has dissolved into the butter. Add the pears and cook gently, turning once or twice, until they have softened and are starting to colour. Set aside to cool.

In a mixing bowl, beat the softened butter with the caster sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in one egg at a time, adding some of the flour to stop the mix curdling.
Combine the remaining flour, ground almonds and cinnamon, and fold into the mixture. Pour into the prepared tin, and arrange the pears on top, and pour on any buttery juices left in the pan.
Bake for about 40-50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Stand the cake in its tin on a wire rack to cool for a few minutes, then release from the tin.
Slice the cake into wedges, and serve with plenty of cold whipped cream.

Have made this several times, and it is absolutely delicious.

I also have a recipe for Stilton and Pear Mousse, which is cooked in the microwave, if you are interested. It's quite long on ingredients, so rather than post it I could type it in Word, and paste it here.

valmarg

[lbt]

Thanks everyone - they all sound lovely and I have enough pears to try them all!