Pear Cake and Sick Baby

So Kevin found more pears and apples on our trees yesterday. The pears are particularly beautiful, and the apples, though bumpy and small, have a tart old-fashioned flavour. With help from F and AB, I used them in a recipe for apple cake from MCC's Simply in Season. It calls for 5 cups of chopped, unpeeled apples and turns out very dark and moist, almost too moist unless eaten immediately, and I've had success cutting it into squares and re-baking it at 300 or so, turning the squares, until the crust becomes crispy and the sugars carmelize.

I peeled the fruit, and substituted pears for most of the apples. The very first apple I chopped open, out leapt a large bug! AB thought it was an earwig. It crawled across the cutting board as I ran madly for something to squash it with (too squeamish to do it bare-handed). "Now that's an adventure in local eating," I said. AB wondered what an adventure was, and I said it was something unexpected and exciting. AB said, "I think you did scream, Mommy." Oddly, that apple had no visible holes, though others did, and none of the rest had bugs or worms.

What with F snacking, all the chopped pears and apples added up to 4 cups, not 5, but the cake can be made with less fruit, though the 5 cup version is superior.

Here's my modified recipe for Apple (Pear) Cake:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
Combine 5 cups apples (pears) with 1 cup sugar (1/3 to 1/2 cup more, if you've got a sweet tooth) in a large bowl. Let stand.
In a separate bowl, combine 1/2 cup oil, 2 lightly beaten eggs, and 2 tsp vanilla.
In a third bowl, combine 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup flour, 2 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp salt. You can sift this together if you want (I didn't).
Stir flour mixture into fruit alternately with egg mixture. Spread in pan. Bake 50-60 mins. (In my oven, it's 50 mins.), or till toothpick comes out clean.

The Simply in Season recipe includes nuts and a sugary-cream glaze, but for my taste, this is just right as is. If you find it almost too moist, as I did, cut into squares, and rebake as suggested above. I haven't done that step with this version yet because the peeled pears were not as juicy as the apples. But I might, just to see how it does; if I do, I'll report back later.

In other news, baby CJ has a nasty cold and stuffed nose, and could not settle last night. So after our usual Olympic gorge, Kevin and I went to bed with this fussy little guy. I thought we might be awake all night, and around 12:30AM almost went downstairs with baby to watch more Olympics. I wanted to see the finish of the triathalon. But with lots of nursing, baby was able to sleep, off and on, and miraculously, so was I. Non-stop breastfeeding seemed to be the best medicine. (I did not regret that cheese and tomato sandwich scarfed right before bed). So I don't know what happened in triathalon. But this morning, I watched Karen Cockburn win silver in the trampoline, a sport that brings back memories of jumping most unspectacularly in a friend's backyard many many years ago. And I just watched our equestrian team clinch silver in show jumping. As AB says, "I really really want to be a horse rider in the Olympics." Yah, I hear ya, kid. She also wants to keep a horse in our backyard. It's like listening to myself, oh, twenty-odd years ago.

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