Recipe Quatre Quart Poire Vanille

[Wandering Bob]

You need:

250g self-raising flour
175g cassonade (brown cane sugar)
140g butter (at room temperature)
1.5 dessertspoons of pépites de chocolat (chocolate chips)
1 softish conference pear – peeled, cored and chopped into small pieces
3 eggs
3/4 teaspoon arome de vanille (vanilla essence)
2 tablespoons of milk

1kg loaf tin (27.5cm x 15cm x 7.5cm deep), greased and lined with a strip of baking parchment

Method:

Mix the flour and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter in chunks and then make fine ‘breadcrumbs’. Add the chocolate chips to the mix.

Break the eggs into a small bowl and take out any pieces of shell. Beat the eggs well and then add the milk and the vanilla essence.

Put the chopped pears and the beaten egg/milk/vanilla mixture into the mixing bowl. Stir vigorously until it has a smooth consistency (it may be necessary to add a little bit more milk to get the consistency right).

Pre-heat the oven to 160C

Put the mixture into the cake tin and bake for about 1 hour. Check if it’s done by inserting a sharp knife (or skewer). If the knife comes out clean, then the cake is ready.

Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes then transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely.

A couple of notes:

- the pear cooks in the cake, so don't use one that's already too soft
- don't exceed the quantity of vanilla essence. I did with my first attempt and it was horrible (but at least my neighbour's chickens got a surprise that day)

 

[Morning Glory]

That looks lovely!

 

[CraigC]

There are several ingredients that I'm not familiar with, based on what you are calling them.
Brown cane sugar. We have several types of brown sugar, light, dark and turbinado.
Conference pear. We have several pear varieties available to us.
Vanilla essence. Pure vanilla extract?

 

[Wandering Bob]

There are several ingredients that I'm not familiar with, based on what you are calling them.
Brown cane sugar. We have several types of brown sugar, light, dark and turbinado.
Conference pear. We have several pear varieties available to us.
Vanilla essence. Pure vanilla extract?

Cassonade is an unrefined brown cane sugar. I was once told by a graphics designer that I'm 'colour illiterate' so I can't really tell you if it's light or dark (don't know what turbinado is, sorry). My instincts say to go with the dark brown sugar.

Sorry - I thought that Conference pears were available globally - perhaps they're only available within Europe? I'm off to buy more today - perhaps I could add a photo of one a bit later so that you could decide which of your locally-available pears it most resembles.

I would imagine that pure vanilla extract is the same thing. My bottle of arome de vanille is printed in French & Dutch - but not English unfortunately

 

[CraigC]

That clarifies things, especially the sugar. It is what we call turbinado as the others I mentioned are refined caster sugar with different amounts of molasses added.

 

[Wandering Bob]

@CraigC - conference pears. About 5 inches long - pic attached