Homer (of The Odyssey not of The Simpsons) loved them. He called pears “a gift of the gods.”

By the time the Renaissance came along, Europeans were even more in love with pears. The powerful Medici dukes, for example, had fruit gardens with expansive collections of pear trees. Interestingly, in an era long before the DSLR, the mode for recording an image was the painting–at least for the Renaissance’s 1% who could afford to be generous patrons of the arts. Thus, The Medicis paid artists to paint images of everything from prospective wives to inventories of the their gardens. Here is a reproduction of Bartolomeo Bimbi’s famous (although not universally admired) pear painting, cataloging the more than 115 varieties of pears growing in the Medici orchards. That is a whole lot of pears!

Fast forward to now. Last week Costco had bags of gorgeous forelle pears. I’m ususally a Bosc person but these small forelles were lovely– golden skinned and flecked with reds and tiny black specks. 

As is always the case with Costco, the bags were way too large for my small household but I gave in to temptation and bought a bag. I’ve been eating and cooking with pears ever since–and exploring the Internet for promising new pear recipes to use up my bounty. 

Here is the recipe for a beautiful pear spice cake that I found on the AllRecipes site. The link to the original recipe appears at the bottom of this post.

Who knew pears could be so delicious?

Homer, of course, would say, “d’oh!” to my lame late appreciation of the full wonder of pears.  (Homer of the…oh, never mind. D’oh!)

Recipe: Fresh Pear Cake

4 C. peeled, cored and chopped pears
2 C. white sugar
3 C. sifted all-purpose flour
1 t. salt
1 1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. ground nutmeg
1 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. ground cloves
4 egg whites
2/3 C. canola oil
1 C. chopped pecans

Directions:

Prepare pears and add sugar. Mix gently and let sit on your counter for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Beat egg whites until frothy. Add egg whites to oil, chopped pecans and pear/sugar mixture.

Sift flour with baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Stir flour mixture into pear mixture.

Pour batter into well-greased bundt pan.

Bake at 325 degrees F. for one hour and 10 minutes, checking frequently to see if cake is done by using a wooden toothpick or kebab spear to check for doneness. (Toothpick should come out of the cake clean rather than covered with uncooked batter.)

When done, remove from oven and cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes before removing from bundt pan.

Once removed from pan, cool cake and, when cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Cook’s Notes: This cake is, to my taste, best eaten slightly warm to bring out the flavor of the pears. Served cold, it is very sweet. I may reduce the sugar in my recipe the next time I make this cake.

Here is the link to the original recipe from All Recipes:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/8212/fresh-pear-cake/

I am an admirer of pastry chef and cookbook author Dorie Greenspan. Julia Child chose her to write Baking with Julia. Her credentials can’t get any better than that.

Greenspan writes a prominent food blog that you might enjoy reading, Dorie Greenspan’s Food Blog and has published a number of highly-regarded cookbooks.

I recently added her 2014 cookbook Baking Chez Moi  to my burgeoning cookbook collection. Ina Garten’s review of the book sold me. Garten wrote: “This personal book on homey French cooking is so beautiful that you’ll want to lick the pages.”  I’m looking forward to trying a lot of her recipes from that book. I’ll let you know how I do.

This is my take of one of Greenspan’s recipes from her earlier book Around My French Table and republished on the PBS site: Marie-Helene’s Apple Cake

Marie-Helene, by the way, is the food editor of the Louis Vuitton City Guides and a friend of Greenspan’s.

In addition to baking a delicious apple cake that you can share with your family and friends,  your kitchen will have that great autumn fragrance of baked apples. There is also, of course, that big dollop of cinnamon-scented heavy whipped cream.

Recipe: Marie-Helene’s Apple Cake

3/4 C. all-purpose flour
3/4 t. baking powder
pinch of salt
4 large apples
2 large eggs
3/4 C. sugar
3 T. dark rum
1/2 t. pure vanilla extract
8 T. unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch springform pan. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set springform pan on the baking sheet.

Whisk four, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Peel and core 4 large apples and cut into 1-inch chunks. Set aside. The original recipe suggests that you use four different types of apples if you can. I did.

Whisk eggs until frothy. Whisk sugar into eggs along with dark rum and vanilla extract. Whisk in half the flour mixture. Add half the melted butter and mix. Add remaining flour and remaining melted butter. Mix.

Fold the apple chunks into the batter mixing until the batter coats the apples. Pour into prepared springform pan and spread batter evenly in the pan.

Bake 50-60 minutes until top of cake is golden colored and a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Remove baked cake from the oven and cool on a rack for five minutes. After five minutes, run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan to separate the cake from the sides of the pan. Be careful in doing this as the cake is pretty tender particularly because it has such a high proportion of apples to batter. Let cake cool completely before cutting. Slice this delicate cake carefully. Serve with a dollop of whipped heavy cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon powder.