Pear Custard (alternative title: The importance of measuring properly)

First a gratuitous pretty photo.  I’ve been meaning to do a food related post forever but I cannot take an appetizing food photo to save my life.  Why is that?  I know it’s not just me because I’ve seen plenty of other not very appealing food pictures out there.  I think when you don’t have the aroma of whatever the dish is it loses part of its appeal. 

One thinks of food as being something that just needs to taste good but really food needs to appeal to all our senses.  Smell, appearance, textures, and even sound – (crackling bacon anyone?) along with taste.  I think that’s why food stylists really have it cut out for themselves.   My hat is off to those of you that do it well. 

  My mother found this pear custard recipe sometime during the mid 80’s.  So I can’t properly credit the original creator of the dish.  Let me tell you though – it makes your house smell like heaven while it’s baking. 

I’m pampering Rick because he had surgery on his hand Friday.  One of his favorite desserts is this pear custard.  I have made this over a dozen times and for some reason I never saved the recipe.  It wasn’t ever a problem though – I would just call my Mom and she would read it off to me.  Again. 

It was bittersweet to call my Dad’s house looking for it this afternoon.  My sister Mary is visiting from Wisconsin and I made her go to my Mom’s recipe journal and look for it.  My mother had great intentions with this journal – but really what ended up happening is instead of copying recipes to it she just shoved clippings in between the pages.  Mary looked through all the clippings three times, while we discussed the proper pruning method for lilacs, and couldn’t find the recipe.  After the third time she flipped to the front of the book and wouldn’t you know it ~ the pear custard recipe was one of two that were actually written into the journal. 

Pear Custard

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

8 ripe pears, peeled and quartered
1 1/2 cups milk
2/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs
2/3 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbls. butter

Arrange pears in a baking dish.  In a blender mix the rest of the ingredients, except for the butter, until blended.  Pour over pears and dot with butter.  Sprinkle a tablespoon or two of sugar over it all.  Bake for 50 minutes. 

I have a very bad habit of not measuring vanilla.  I just grab the bottle and pour an approximate amount in.  This afternoon I grabbed the bottle and as I was pouring it into the blender I realized I had grabbed almond extract instead.   Oops.  If I had used a measuring spoon I would have noticed and could have caught myself before adding it to the other ingredients.  I just added a swig of vanilla – we’ll see how it tastes.

And I have the recipe copied down now.