Apples are a popular choice for crisps and cobblers, but pears are also an excellent fruit for making this type of dessert. Pears tend to be juicier and more tender than apples, especially once they’ve been baked. That means that when they’re put into a fruit dessert like a crisp, they bake up very quickly and produce a fruit filling that has a lot of moisture to contrast with a streusel topping.
These Individual Pear Crisps with Oatmeal Streusel are easy to make and even easier to eat. The filling is made with fresh pears, a little bit of sugar and just a touch of flour to help thicken all of the pear juices. The topping is made with flour, oatmeal and brown sugar. I prefer to use quick cooking oatmeal, which is made of regular rolled oats that have been coarsely chopped because I think that it gives the best texture. You will still get good results with regular rolled oats if that’s what you have in your pantry. The streusel topping turns golden brown in the oven and has a nice crunch to it. It is buttery, with just the right amount of sweetness, and has a lot of flavor in spite of its short ingredient list, and is an amazing flavor match for the tender, juicy pears.
As with most cobblers, the amount of fruit that you use is not critical and you can use a bit more or a bit less than I’ve suggested in the recipe (which is why I simply suggested the number of pears that you might want to use, rather than the weight). Sometimes I’ll stretch the streusel topping by using more pears and turning six servings into eight. Other times, I’ll just make four and save the remaining streusel in a baggie in the fridge for a few days for another batch.
These crisps are the best when they’re still slightly warm from the oven and served with vanilla ice cream. Leftovers also make a very good breakfast dish if they’re warmed in the microwave (they should be stored in the fridge, covered) and topped with a bit of milk or cream before serving.
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A Bûche de Noël is a cake that is traditionally served around Christmas. It’s a roulade – or jelly roll – type cake – that is frosted with chocolate frosting or ganache and decorated to look like a yule log, complete with meringue marshmallows. They’re fun cakes to prepare and, with all that chocolate and the rather elaborate presentation, they’re always a hit when they’re served. The drawback is that they’re time consuming, so fewer people tend to take the time to make then during the holidays. One solution to this is to make the cake itself easier, so instead of using a roulade cake to make a yule log, you can use a bundt pan to make a holiday stump.
It sounds silly to say it aloud, but the Stump de Noël Bundt Cake Pan really does make a very attractive cake. It’s a standard bundt pan that is shaped like the stump of a tree, complete with roots and lines that look like bark. It’s made by Nordicware of heavy duty cast aluminum and it has a nonstick interior. You can decorate your holiday stump just as you would a traditional bûche de Noël, with chocolate and meringue mushrooms, and it still makes a dramatic statement on the dessert table.
This pan can also be surprisingly good for other holiday occasions, as well. Adding a little green-tinted frosting as grass around the base and decorating the cake with flowers will give you a lovely spring cake, and placing some Easter Eggs inside the stump makes it a festive option for Easter. For fall celebrations, some yellow, gold and red “leaves” made from chocolate or even piped on with icing can produce a beautiful result.
When I visited Spain last year, I tasted several different types of cookies that were baked by nuns. It’s not uncommon for different convents to specialize in different baked goods. In fact, it’s a tradition that has been going on for centuries, so in many cities and large towns you can find shops that specialize in this type of treat. Caelum is one of those places, and I visited it on my more recent trip to Barcelona. It’s a charming cafe in the heart of old-town Barcelona that specializes in baked goods and confections made by nuns from all across the country. The selection wasn’t limited just to cookies, but featured fudge, tarts, candies, cakes and – most importantly – lots of chocolate.
Caelum’s specialty is rich hot chocolate. Theirs is made with purely nun-produced chocolate and, as you might guess, tasted heavenly. You can buy boxed products to take home, each bearing the name of the sisters who produced it, but you can also dine in the cafe itself and choose treats from a beautiful dessert buffet that they have set up. The prices were reasonable, everything was delicious (especially the hot chocolate!) and the place had a great atmosphere.
The pastries and hot chocolate that they sell at Caelum certainly make it worth a visit, but the shop has one other feature that is worth going out of your way to see. It is built on top of a medieval Jewish bath, and a beautiful seating area has been set up in the historic basement, which was part of the baths. This space is what gives Caelum its character and ambiance. The stone walls and vaulted ceilings are beautiful and make the space very romantic.
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Mint and chocolate is a winning combination, but mint can be a tricky ingredient to work with. This is because it has such a strong flavor that it can easily overwhelm the other elements in a recipe. One solution is to cut back slightly on the mint and to pair it with other strong flavors – like dark chocolate or cocoa – so that you get a balanced result where you can taste both the mint and the other elements of your recipe. These Mint Chocolate Brownie Cookies with Walnuts are just the thing if you want a hint of mint in with your chocolate.
The way I get that hint-of-mint flavor into these cookies is that I add chopped up mint chocolate, meaning chocolate bars that are flavored with mint. Good examples of this are Andes Mints (which are also sold as baking chips), the Lindt Excellence Intense Mint Bar (yum!), and Ghirardelli MMint Bliss, as well as other chocolates that are flavored with mint. Using these chocolate bars ensures that I get even more chocolate flavor into the cookies and just the right amount of mint, without overwhelming the rest of a recipe. It’s easy to go overboard with peppermint extracts can do if you’re not careful, but using just a 1/4 teaspoon and dark chocolate chips will make a good substitute if you can’t find a mint chocolate bar to chip up and add to your cookies.
The cookies are fudgy and brownie-like (and can be even more brownie-like if you underbake them by a minute), with a tender center and a slight chew to them. They get most of their richness from unsweetened cocoa powder, which gives them an intense, dark chocolate flavor that makes them feel very indulgent. The hint of mint in the cookies lightens up that chocolate taste a little bit, and the additions of walnuts add just enough texture and crunch. These cookies have been a hit every time I’ve served them: just a bit different from your usual chocolate cookie but with a satisfying chocolate punch.
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