The province of Provence once had a family with four daughters who became queens of England, France, Sicily and Germany. Four Queens is about their lives and how they came to power. This is also the story of four sisters so you know there is a fair amount of back stabbing and intrigue. Even when you have a favorite sister, there is still the other two to contend with. It's a somewhat dry book, but I learned a lot about the age. Their father and mother kept a very enlightened house, teaching all four girls to read in an age when most boys did not have that advantage. There were troubadours and poets. It's a shame that they had to leave that to live with mean mothers-in-law and political intrigue.
If you bought 4 books Audible gave you $10.00 toward a future purchase. I didn't want to get sucked into spending even more money because if what I was saving, I decided to buy a book that cost less than the $10. The Abominable Man was a nice Swedish police procedural that fit the bill. The protagonist is Martin Beck. I think I worked with him at The Times. Hopefully a different person, because this Beck is a little dour. So I had a good read and still have $.24 to spend. Cool.
I continue to be the never ending baking machine. Never ending to the point that I ran out of flour. Adrian remedied that problem, but in the meantime I'd found this recipe using cake flour. It only uses 1/4 c. + 1 T. so I hardly dented the new box of cake flour. I found the recipe on a blog called Chocolate Shavings (ourchocolateshavings.blogspot.com). I have no idea how I found that, but these are amazingly good. We did not have them with the ganache so ours were much healthier. As soon as I got these out of the oven, Adrian made a deep dish pizza from scratch. He is amazing. I don't like deep dish pizza, but I loved this. I did get a picture, but haven't down loaded it yet. Next time he visits you, be sure to ask him to fix this. He is definitely the king in this story.
Chocolate Pear Cakes
Serves 2
1/2 stick of butter
2 tablespoons of lightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon of cake flour
1 good pinch of kosher salt
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon of milk
2 pears
Preheat your oven to 350F. Add the softened butter and sugar to a medium-size mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add the egg and beat until just incorporated. Using a small whisk, whisk in the vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. Add the flour mixture to the butter batter in small batches, whisking the mixture until homogeneous. Whisk in the milk.
Peel the pears making sure to leave the steam intact. Using a small knife or melon baller, carefully scoop out the core of the pear leaving the pear intact. Ladle the batter evenly into 2 individual ramekins. Form a well in the middle of the batter with the back of a spoon and place the pear inside the well. Gently press down so that the batter settles around the pear.
Bake for 20 minutes or until the top of the batter is set. The inside of the batter will be gooey so the toothpick test will not be a good indication here. Let the cakes cool and serve with chocolate ganache.
Serves 2
1/2 stick of butter
2 tablespoons of lightly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon of cake flour
1 good pinch of kosher salt
1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon of milk
2 pears
Preheat your oven to 350F. Add the softened butter and sugar to a medium-size mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add the egg and beat until just incorporated. Using a small whisk, whisk in the vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. Add the flour mixture to the butter batter in small batches, whisking the mixture until homogeneous. Whisk in the milk.
Peel the pears making sure to leave the steam intact. Using a small knife or melon baller, carefully scoop out the core of the pear leaving the pear intact. Ladle the batter evenly into 2 individual ramekins. Form a well in the middle of the batter with the back of a spoon and place the pear inside the well. Gently press down so that the batter settles around the pear.
Bake for 20 minutes or until the top of the batter is set. The inside of the batter will be gooey so the toothpick test will not be a good indication here. Let the cakes cool and serve with chocolate ganache.
No comments:
Post a Comment