use real butter

Recipe: pear upside down gingerbread cake

Pears have been around for a few months, but I’ve only really taken notice of them in the past few weeks. I’ve always had a mild fear of pears. I know that sounds silly, but hear me out. The Chinese say it’s bad luck to split a pear between two people. One person eating a pear is fine. Three or more people sharing a pear is fine too. Two people should not split a pear. Because splitting a pear in Chinese is fen li and that is the same sound as the phrase for separation. But I figured, if I put the pears in a cake and shared it around with lots of people – I’d be in the clear.

bosc pears

the topping: pears, butter, light brown sugar

the cake: flour, brown sugar, molasses, butter, water, candied ginger, egg, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves

It’s the perfect time around here for a pear upside down gingerbread cake, don’t you think? Gingerbread stirs that festive holiday mood and pears are in season. Also – it’s 11°F outside, so turning on the oven is a wonderful, awesome, very good thing to do.

peel, core, and slice the pears into eighths

sprinkle brown sugar over the melted butter and let cook

arrange the pear slices over the butter-sugar mixture

First, you begin at the stove with a cast iron skillet or other non-stick ovenproof frying pan. These recipes always call for a 10-inch skillet and I only have a 12-inch cast iron skillet. So I sliced up four pears instead of the 2.5 from the recipe to make up for the added volume. Besides, I really like a higher fruit to cake ratio. Start with melting the butter then add the brown sugar. Mine did not melt much at all, it just kind of sat there. But when I added the pear slices, it started turning into this beautiful caramel colored melty syrup. Even if it doesn’t start melting, never fear – it will definitely melt in the oven. But you have to make the batter before you can pop this into the oven.

whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices together

beat the sugar, butter, and egg together

whisk the molasses into the boiling hot water

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: baked chocolate doughnuts

There is a big bowl of chocolate candies sitting on our kitchen counter. We didn’t get a single trick-or-treater this year. I mean, we don’t typically get very many kids hoofing it up to our house, but we’ve had as many as a dozen on Halloweens past. It doesn’t help that it was cold and windy. I like Halloween so very much for a lot of reasons. First off, it’s a no guilt holiday (for me) that doesn’t involve obligation, travel, or cooking a massive meal. Secondly, it’s FUN and creative and also a little scary! But it’s not TOO scary because little kids are involved, and that’s good because I can pretty much handle “little kid” levels of scary. Thirdly – it is the anniversary of our first date, followed by November 1st, our smoochiversary.

20 years ago on the shores of the olympic peninsula

Jeremy and I have been together for 21 years, which is essentially half of my life… but all of my heart. He is the very best person I have ever known. And when the very best person you have ever known likes chocolate and cake and doughnuts, it’s absolutely appropriate to make chocolate cake doughnuts, don’t you think?

vanilla, brown sugar, cocoa, baking soda, salt, butter, eggs, flour, buttermilk

flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt

mix the dry ingredients together

Every time I’ve made doughnuts in the past, I have fried them. I think fried dough is one of the perks of being human. We have opposable thumbs, we can make doughnuts. But deep frying stuff is a pain in the ass unless you have a deep fryer, which I don’t want to own. A few weeks ago, I finally broke down and purchased doughnut pans. I usually cringe at the thought of acquiring such task-specific bakeware, but figured I could get some good mileage out of these pans if the baked doughnuts were a success.

adding buttermilk to the brown sugar, vanilla, eggs

whisk in melted butter

combine the wet and dry ingredients

the batter should be thick and smooth

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Recipe: pumpkin crème brûlée

Pumpkin season is upon us and I’m not referring to pumpkin spice lattes, although they are certainly out there. I’m talking about cute chubby toddlers staggering around pumpkin patches like small drunk people. Or carving your Halloween pumpkin into The Death Star. Roasting pumpkin seeds to snack on later. I don’t overdo it in our house because I understand the dangers of pumpkin fatigue – it has to last through the holidays. But I do get excited about trying something new and pumpkiny every autumn. And don’t you think they should have been named plumpkins?

eggs, vanilla bean, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, pumpkin, cream

I know it is de rigueur to break down a whole pumpkin, but I have a lot of canned pumpkin in my pantry throughout the year because I make Kaweah’s dog treats from scratch every few weeks. It’s especially handy when you need just a little bit of pumpkin to make pumpkin crème brûlée, and Kaweah didn’t mind sharing because she’s sweet like that.

scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean

steep the vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg in the cream

whisk the yolks and sugar together

**Jump for more butter**