Pears

We've had a couple of days of fog, it has been floating past the windows and hanging in the trees like smoke, virtually the whole country is blanketed under the stuff. This afternoon the mist rolled away for a short while so I went out with my camera. The farrier has put his goats on the overgrown bank beside the footpath, they are friendly little animals and are doing a good job of clearing the slope.

Perhaps the stag thought that the mist would hide him.

The fallen leaves have lost their crispness now

and are forming a soft mash and meld of colour under my boots.

Just the right sort of weather for fungi.

The damp air seeps into me.

It's good to get back to the warmth of the kitchen.

We picked our crop of pears a couple of weeks ago when they were still hard and put most of them in the cool so that they would ripen slowly. A basket was put in the kitchen to be ready earlier. That was the theory! But it would seem that pears don't do as they're told, they're not as accommodating as apples, pears always ripen at the same time whatever I try and once ripe they soon spoil. I made a tray bake but it didn't use as many fruits as I would have liked, I should have crammed them over the entire surface.

It's a fat-free recipe.

INGREDIENTS

8oz self-raising flour

3oz soft light-brown sugar

2oz semolina

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 tablespoons clear honey

2 tablespoons malt extract

4 tablespoons milk

4 tablespoons sunflower oil

teaspoon vanilla essence

2 eggs.

Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa powder and semolina. Separate eggs and whisk whites until stiff.Add egg yolks and other ingredients to the flour mixture and combine until smooth. Fold in the egg whites and pour into a 7x11inch greased baking tray. Add pear slices and cook at 325F for half an hour.

Once the cake has cooled sprinkle with icing sugar. It will melt on the moist pears but stay on the cake.

Enjoy!