Magic Pear Grumble

Interesting title, what?

    Once upon a time a Maiden Odd acquired, to her delight, a book which held Tales of Old, spun from threads of imagination. Whilst delving into the delights of the book a discovery was ere long made, that after the story had come to an end, there were set down several of Ye Olde Recipes.

A Maiden Odd marked those she found appealing, and setteth them aside until Ye Various Ingredients could be acquired for a proper and thorough test.
   Ye Old Recipe she is sharing today contains a mere handful of Ye Various Ingredients and, in truth, thou shalt surely find it easily mastered.

   To begin, having inherited the particular peculiarity of not being able to leave some of Ye Olde Recipes alone from Ye Older Sister, A Maiden Odd forsook the idea of using pears (for she doth not care for them overly much), using instead some rather ripe apples lounging in Ye Olde Pantry.

   It was recieved fairly well enough, and A Maiden Odd accepted Ye Gentle Criticisms offered.

"Gadzooks! I dost believe this syrupy dish doth contain several grains of sugar too much!"**

A Maiden Odd determined Ye Olde Recipe could improved upon be - and Ye Olde Recipe upon the table graces every year.

Magic Pear Grumble

1 cup flour (115 g)
2/3 cup sugar (265 g)*
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup milk (115 ml)
4 ripe pears, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-3/4 inch chunks
(peaches were used here because Maiden Odd better prefereth them)
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar (150g)
1/4 cup butter (55 g) cut into 5 pieces
3/4 cup boiling water (175 ml)

*This recipe hath a very sweetness of taste, especially if the fruit thou useth is not very tart of a nature. The last time it twas made the sugar was diminished to 1/2 cup.   Twas better but mayhap would have been fine if more hath been left out.

Ere thou begin thou must preheat thy cooking fire (stove) to 375 degrees F (190 C)

In a large crock (bowl), using Ye Olde Whisk, mix together thy flour, white sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and ground cloves until wondrous well combined.

A Maiden Odd dost not oft measure everything out beforehand - but, verily, since the start of this blog, the accounting of food images on her hard-drive seem to hath begun multiplying rapidly. . . . .

Now, return us to Ye Olde Recipe -
Add thy milk of a cow, and beat until smooth. Verily thy batter, ere long, shalt be very thick and sticky.

Making sufficient use of a rubber spatula, fold in peaches (or pears or any fruit that thou art using) to thy batter.
Scoop ariont an unslicked (ungreased) baking or casserole dish.

Boil thy water and measure 3/4 cup (it would behoove thou to have thy water merrily rolling already - A Maiden Odd hath done it both ways before and it taketh a longer time, significantly, when thou hast to stand and stare at thy pot, waiting for it to boil:)
Place thy butter and brown sugar in a small, heat proof bowl or, mayhap, measuring glass and pour thy hot water over yon butter and sugar. Stir until melted and dissolved.

Huzzah! A favorite part is now upon thou - it puzzleth Maiden Odd greatly, how Ye Olde Recipe worketh out so wondrous well. . . . .

Pour thy hot water mixture over the batter in thy baking dish - and DOST NOT MIX!

Does it not look appetizing?  

To pour liquid like thou hast, and not mix, rings of error great - but wait til thou seeist what hast happened to it!

*Oh, on a side jot - whence thou puttest thy batter in a baking dish thou doth not have to smooth it all out, making it level. It shall looketh a sight more interesting if thou stayest thy hand. (A Maiden Odd inevitably oft forgetteth and endeth up smoothing it out. Thou can if thou wantest, but thou dost not have to.)

Bake thy dessert for 45 minutes. It shalt be bubbly and golden brown when completed.

VIOLA!!!!  Looketh rather enticing, dost it not!
No longer watery and odd looking, instead the syrup hast bubbled all around the edges; the batter hast puffed and turneth golden brown, and smelleth wondrous well!

Served warm with whip-ed cream or fresh, vanilla iced cream Ye Olde Dessert tastes wonderful well!

Thou could even try drizzle chocolate sauce over everything. (It has not been tried, but it soundeth pretty rather well.)

**canst thou guess who hath been quoted thus?

Strawberry Lime Popsicles

  This year has been unusually warm for our area and as it kept getting hotter the need for a cool treat to help us stay relatively sane became more apparent - thus the discovery of how fun it is to make homemade Popsicles!  We've only had a few batches but we have liked them all so far and it they are really easy to make.

  Here is a recipe I came up with just a few days ago - and don't expect exact directions because I don't work that way, I will most likely get to the end of making something up and go, "Shoot, what did I do?"
  This whole recipe is basically adjustable to suit your own taste, I will just give you guidelines to get you started.

Strawberry-Lime Popsicle

Throw 1 cup strawberries, approximately, into a blender (if using frozen allow them to partially thaw.)

Add several scoops of plain yogurt (at least equal yogurt to berries. . . I think)

Juice of half a lime, plus a little zest*

A tablespoon or so of honey.

   I warned you it was going to be vague.  Anyway, the blender used was small, probably around 2 or 3 cups and it was full when I was finished adding and tweaking.
   After you get the ingredients blended up you need to have several taste tests to see if it suits your taste-buds.  I really don't know how much honey ended up in it, as I just used a squeeze bottle, adjust accordingly, being careful you add small amounts at a time so you don't get it too sweet.  (Irish Rose told me that you want to have it a little bit sweet because freezing it will dull the sweetness.)

*I squeezed a bit more juice out of the other half of the lime because I wanted to make sure the tangy taste would come through.

  Pour into Popsicle molds and freeze!   I wasn't too keen on the taste before they were transferred to the molds, it wasn't quite what I was going for, but they are really good after freezing.

  I would love to say that this is a gluten and sugar free recipe, but it isn't.  I thought it was until I looked at the yogurt container this morning  - and the yogurt had sugar in it(oops, guess we can't eat the rest of them).  But if you use homemade yogurt or kefir it would be a gluten-sugar free recipe. :)

*Correction - Because I didn't know how to tell if something contained natural or processed sugar I assumed that if it said sugar on the label it was all processed. I was wrong - so, as it turned out the sugar in the yogurt was in fact natural and we could eat the Popsicles!