looking for a recipe

[commandercranky]

So I left this recipe at home, and now I need some help finding it. Anyone have Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for everyone? (I'm looking especially at you two, flowerlane and rootlesscosmo). If you do, hit me up with the Pear-Almond Upside Down Cake recipe. That may not be the exact name, but it's in there, you bake it in a cast-iron

Comments

[rootlesscosmo]

I don't have that book and don't know that recipe. Have you tried Googling for it? Failing that, here's a good, easy pear recipe:

Slice the bottoms off Bosc pears (so they'll stand flat) and stand them in an ovenproof pan--your cast iron skillet will do fine. Pour 1 cup sugar around them. Pour 1 cup red wine over the sugar. Put the pan in a 375° oven for around 40 minutes; the wine/sugar mix should boil and become thick and syrupy.

You can get fancy-shmancy, drizzle on a little honey, add a few thin shavings of Parmigiano Reggiano or equivalent, or just eat these (after they've cooled) with the gooey syrup poured over them. Nice.

[commandercranky]

Ah - well it was worth a shot. I've googled to no avail.

Thanks for your recipe. It looks great. I may just do that instead.

part 1

[gordonzola]

Pears:
3 tbs butter
3/4 light brown sugar packed
2 large comice or bartlett pears

Cake:
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
3/4 granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp almond extract
3 eggs room temp
2/3 cup blanched almonds finely ground
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 375. heat the butter with brown sugar in a 10 inch cat-iron killet over medium heat until sugar is melted and smooth, then remove the pan from the heat. Peel halve and core the pears. Set one of the halves aside and cut the other 3 length-wise into slices about 1/4 inch thick, angling your knife so the slices are equally thick. Overlap the slices in the sugared pan, going around the outside. Slice the remaining half crosswise and fan it into the center.

For the cake, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the vanilla and almond etract. Beat in the egga one at a time until smooth. Stir in the nuts, followed by the remaining dry ingredients. Spoon the batter over the fruit and smooth it ourt with a spatula.

Re: part 1

[gordonzola]

Bake in the center of the oven until cake is golden and springy when pressed with a fingertip, 35-40 minutes. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes then set a cake plate on top of the pan, grasp nboth the plate and the pan tightly, and turn it over. Carefully eae the pa off the cake. If any fruits have stuck to the pan simply pry them off and return them to cake.

Re: part 1

[commandercranky]

THANKS GORDON! I ended up approximating by combining my memory with another similar recipe, but it's nice to fact-check against the original. Thanks for the quick reply.

If you haven't tried this yet, do. It's delicious.