A peeled pear situation!

A few days ago my colleagues and I were discussing the topic of dreams during lunch. One colleague has dreams about big tsunami like waves on a regular basis, where another told us that, when in high school, he often dreamed about arriving at school in nothing but his underwear. I on the other hand rarely have a recollection of my dreams. However, the best story came from one of my colleagues whom told us about a unique childhood dream.

She once dreamed about a field trip at elementary school where she and her classmates were not involved in a water balloon battle, but in a battle where everyone was throwing with pears.. not just pears though, but peeled pears. She had everyone, including herself, laughing tears. This biggest, unsolved, question that rose was whether or not you'd have to peel the pear first, before throwing, or that they were just peeled.. like that. We'll never know and all agreed that the mind is as funny as it is brilliant!

But since it is pear season the funny story did inspire me to bake a pear pie. I find that pears and chocolate are an excellent combination and therefore covered the pastry with homemade chocolate, almond butter, pears and creme alsacienne. Delisch!

Invite your friends over for tea and pie after a walk through the beautiful forest. Got to love the Fall colors.

Let me know what you think of the recipe.



Chocolate & Pear pie
(makes a 24 cm pie dish) - Recipe inspired by the Yellow Lemon Tree Blog

• 4 pears, peeled
• 1 tablespoon of almond shavings

Pastry

• 100 grams regular flour
• Pinch of salt
• 40 grams icing sugar
• 15 grams almond flour
• 60 grams cold butter
• 1 beaten egg

Mix all ingredients, except the egg, until a crumbly pastry forms. Mix in the egg and knead the dough. 

Shape the pastry into a ball, or disk, and cool for at least 30 minutes in the fridge. If you'd like to use the pastry at a later day you could also put it in the freezer. Make sure to get the pastry out of the freezer the night before so it can de-freeze properly. 

Creme Alsacienne

• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 50 grams sugar
• 15 grams almond flour
• 15 grams regular flour
• 50 ml milk
• 100 grams quark

Mix all ingredients for the creme in a bowl. 

Chocolate, almond butter - Recipe adapted from Green Kitchen Stories (The Green Kitchen Travels)

• 350 grams almonds
• 12 fresh dates, pitted
• 4 tablespoons of cacao
• splash of water
• 40 grams of coconut oil, melted

Put the almonds on a baking tray in a single layer and roast in the oven for about 20 minutes (200 degrees Celsius), until golden and fragrant. Once out of the oven let the almonds cool for a bit and put in the large bowl of a food processor. Process the nuts until a nut butter forms (approximately 10 minutes), scraping down the sides once in a while. Mash the dates and process them through the nut butter along with the cacao powder and coconut oil. Add a splash of water until a desired consistency.

You'd need only half of the chocolate, almond butter to assemble the pie. No worries though! You either bake two pies and surprise a relative, friend of supportive neighbor with a freshly baked pie.. oooor you could use it as chocolate spread for breakfast, lunch or as a snack. It keeps for several weeks in the fridge. 

Butter your pie dish. To assemble the pie you roll out the pastry to a size where it fits your pie dish. Spread the almond chocolate butter on the pastry. Slice the pears thinly and assemble them on the chocolate butter. Poor the creme alsacienne over the pears and sprinkle with the almond shavings.

Bake the pie for approximately 45 minutes (the creme has set and has browned evenly) at 170 degrees Celsius.

Enjoy! <3

Also.. working on my pastry assembling skills. Any advice ^^?