Easy Pear and Almond Pudding

While my savoury Yam Cake is steaming and giving all signs that it's going to be a disaster, I thought I'll write about this easy to make, hard to fail fruit, fast to prepare pudding to give myself a boost of confidence. Too many failures in the kitchen recently.

Still from my trusty Christelle Le Ru's Irresistible French Desserts that I received as a birthday present. I chose to make the pudding to finish up the ripened pears and soon to expired cream.

Lacking in ground almonds, I soon found myself pounding sliced almonds with pestle and mortar. The unevenly ground almonds actually gave the pudding a nice coarse texture, so do this if you don't mind flexing your arm muscles.

Pear and Almond Pudding
serves 2

20g sultanas
2 pears
1 egg (use 3 eggs if you're doubling the quantity, as I had halved the quantity of original recipe, and it was still enough for both of us the next day)
30g white sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
50g ground almonds (pound sliced almonds yourself to give it a coarse texture)
15g flour
50g crème fraîche (thickened cream)
75ml milk
sprinkle of blanched almond

Preheat oven to 180C. Pour boiling water over sultanas to soften it. Peel and cut pears into slices. Now, you can also use apples, or mixture of both. Divide the fruits into 2 ovenproof dishes along with the drain and dried sultanas. Or just one will do, if you don't mind sharing from the same dish.

Beat eggs, sugar, cinnamon and ground almonds. Mix in the flour and cream. Flour may be omitted or reduced for a lighter texture. Gradually stir in milk and the resulting texture is creamy and somewhat more liquid than a cake mixture. Pour the mixture over the fruit.

Scatter almonds over and bake for 20 minutes. Serve warm.