Cinnamon Pear Bruschetta

Some time ago, while browsing Tasty Kitchen, I came across this recipe for a pear bruschetta. It sounded delicious and I knew I had to make it.

I told my mom about the recipe and she was excited too so she agreed to buy the ingredients. I have never cooked or baked with mascarpone so I was looking forward to that.

This recipe is fairly easy and turned out a product I would be happy to serve to guests. I hope to make it again for Thanksgiving this year. I did have some difficulty getting the results I thought I should. In the directions for the recipe it says to allow the pears to slowly caramelize. Now I don't know if my pears were too ripe and therefore there was too much liquid and this did not allow for caramelization or what, but it didn't matter how long I cooked the pears, they just got softer and no caramelizing was in sight.

Next time I will buy my pears the day I want to make this and maybe use a different pear, we will see. I hope some of you will make this, it is so delicious and looks really pretty. I adjusted the recipe slightly with the bread  and spices and really liked the flavor I came away with.

Original recipe here

Ingredients:
1 loaf Baguette, sliced
1 T. butter
3 whole pears, chopped
1/4 t. salt
1/2 T. cinnamon
1/4 t. ginger
1/4 t. allspice
1/2 c. mascarpone
1 t. honey
1/2 t. sugar
1/4 t. nutmeg
2 T. balsamic vinegar

Heat the oven to 400°.
Place the baguette rounds on a baking sheet. Bake 5-7 minutes or until toasted and golden brown.
Heat a skillet over medium-low heat.
Add the butter. Add the pears and sprinkle with cinnamon, allspice, ginger and salt.
Allow to caramelize slowly for 10-15 minutes. Stir occasionally.
In a small bowl, combine mascarpone, honey, nutmeg and sugar.
Spread on baguette slices.
Once the pears caramelize, add the balsamic vinegar and cook for 1-2 minutes more.*
Spoon pears over bread.
Serve warm or cold**


* I completely forgot to add the balsamic vinegar when I made this. It still tasted good!
** I recommend serving warm, it's kind of like eating a pear pie :)
By the way, make sure not to add the pears to the baguette while they are really hot, they will melt the mascarpone.

I took some nice photos and instead of showing you only one, I am going to show you all of the good ones!


The cinnamon stick was my mom's idea :)




I love how this looks against the fall tablecloth!


My mom thought it needed some green. It looks pretty good!


As always, thanks for reading!

Sam

Pear Cake

Remember this? I knew I wanted to bake a pear version of this cake and one day while I was out shopping I found a bag of bartlett pears for $0.97! They were smaller than the ones I usually bought but the bag had enough in it to make up for size. So I ate a few and let the rest ripen just for this cake recipe.

As I was gathering all of the ingredients for the cake I noticed that I probably did not have enough white sugar to fulfill the two cups needed. Luckily I did have an even one cup so I used brown sugar for the other cup.

What an amazing difference! This cake was waaaaay better than the peach version and the brown sugar was the only difference. This cake is so tasty and tastes just like fall. Perfect way to start the season.

I posted this recipe on The Pioneer Woman's website, Tasty Kitchen, so I am going to make you go to that site for the actual recipe. I urge you all to make this cake and then serve it warm, perhaps with some vanilla ice cream. But for now you can see some photos of this lovely cake.

University

The grade came in for my Christmas paper and I received an 'A'! This brings my GPA up to just over a 3.0 which is what I needed to qualify for the TAG so I can go to UC Santa Cruz next fall.

The above is the only positive thing about this post. Just warning you.

Once my grade had been posted I started to work on the TAG application. I was a little worried it would be complicated, the school offers workshops on this application. The worry was unfounded, the application was easy, although a little time consuming. (I guess this part isn't so bad either. Don't worry, it will get crappy really soon.)

I finish the application and then it comes to the 'Submit' portion where I have to check these boxes before I can actually submit. One such box asks if I have met the minimum requirements of all UC schools at this point. I click on the link and my world shatters.

To transfer, even with the TAG, I need 2 transferable English classes and 1 transferable Math class. What? I have not taken any English or Math classes yet. I saw TWO counselors about this application and they both told me about having to meet the requirements for the TAG. Neither of them mentioned I would also have to meet these requirements. That was the whole reason I wanted to do the TAG, because I had not yet done Math or English.

I talked with someone in the transfer center at school and she said there is pretty much nothing I can do. I can call UCSC and see if they are doing Winter admissions but there is not much hope in that. Budget cuts being what they are, they have only been accepting people in the fall.

So now instead of going to this school next fall, the earliest I can go is next winter (January I guess.) I don't think I can wait another year! This is complete and utter bullshit! I was misinformed and now have wasted more of my time at this stupid community college. I am so done with VCCCD. I want to go to a real school and finally get a degree instead of wasting time and money and earning nothing.

Brandon says that we should move up there as planned and both attend the community college there. That might be a good idea, getting a change of scene. I am so angry at both Ventura and Moorpark college and so depressed that this whole thing is happening. I don't even want to deal with school anymore.

I feel so pathetic and unsuccessful in life. I look at my friends and so many of them have degrees and good jobs and are moving on with their lives. I am 26 and still going to a "two-year" school where I have been for 4 years. I have no job because without a degree and the economy what it is I can't get a job. Or I get some lame retail job but I can't keep it because I am in school so my availability isn't open enough. I have no money because I have no job and life just sucks.

I hope this post has brightened all of your days!


Sam

So I turned in my Christmas paper today. I won't know for a few days what my grade is but I feel pretty good about my work. Hopefully in the next few days I will have a more interesting post for everyone.

Blogging and Baking

All of the baking I have been doing to keep this blog moving forward (as well as keep me happy) has really made me want to work in the food industry. The problem is, I don't want to work in a restaurant or a bakery or a grocery store.

What I really want to do is to be able to sell baked goods out of my home. Just a small business that I would be able to keep up with by myself.

I don't know if this is ever going to be something that I can achieve but it is a goal of mine.

Christmas Paper

Once again, a school paper is taking over my life. This time, though, it is my fault.

I am doing a directed studies program in Anthropology and chose to write a paper about the ways people view and celebrate Christmas. I wasn't able to finish it in the semester I started so I took an incomplete and thus gave myself another year to finish it.

Unfortunately, I want to go to UC Santa Cruz. While this in itself is not the problem, it is the transfer agreement program (TAG) that I am using to transfer. I need to have a 3.0 GPA to qualify for the TAG and as of last semester my GPA was 2.95. How irritating.

So now, instead of collecting data over the holiday season and having lots of time to finish, I need to finish this paper in the next few days so that it can be graded. Once the paper is graded it will bring my GPA up enough to qualify.

Here is the real problem. I was told I had until October 15 to send my application in and now I find out it is September 30! Two weeks lost. Now I have to scramble to get this somewhat together and decent. Here is what I think I am going to do:

Throw together something so that my teacher has something to grade. Get an OK grade (preferably a 'B'.) Redo the paper at a later date so that it is up to my standards and something worth keeping.


I have a couple of blog post ideas but, until this paper is done you will see none of them. Sorry.

Sam

3-2-1 Birthday Cake

So the 5th was Brandon's birthday. Of course I had to make a cake and our friend, Justin, came out and we went out to lunch at Famous Dave's.  If you have not eaten there and you have a chance to, you really should. It is quite tasty, good Southern BBQ.

I usually use a cake mix (gasp!) and spend most of my time on the decorating but Brandon wanted specific flavors for his cake (yellow cake with chocolate frosting) and didn't care how it looked so I made a cake from scratch using my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (mine is the 1993 edition.)

The cake came out yummy and much more dense than the boxed cakes and the frosting (actually an icing) was just as delicious as the last time I made it. I used Wilton's Chocolate Fudge Icing, which would be divine on brownies, and warmed it until it could be poured.

Here is the recipe and following that are some photos:

Ingredients:

Cake-
3 c. flour
2 c. sugar
1 T. Baking Powder (hence the 3-2-1)
1 1/2 c. Milk
1/2 c. Butter, softened
1 1/2 t. Vanilla
2 Eggs

Icing-
2/3 c. Butter
1 1/3 c. Cocoa
2/3 c. Milk
6 c. Powdered Sugar
2 t. Vanilla***

For the cake:
Set the oven to 375°. Spray or grease 2 9inch cake pans.*
In a bowl, combine flour, sugar and baking powder.
Add milk, butter and vanilla. Beat on low speed until combined. Beat on high for 2 minutes.
Add eggs and beat for 2 more minutes.
Pour into pans. Bake 25-30 minutes** or until done.
Cool for about 10 minutes the remove cake from pans and continue to cool on a wire rack.

For the icing:
Melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the cocoa and heat just until boiling, stirring constantly until smooth.
Pour cocoa/butter mixture into a bowl and cool.
Alternately add powdered sugar and milk and beat to a spreading consistency.
Blend in vanilla.

*I used an angel food cake pan, which turned out looking like a doughnut!
**The baking time was about the same.
***I ran out of vanilla at this point but it still tasted good.

Here it is right out of the pan. Looks a little like a doughnut!


First stage of icing application. Now it really looks like a doughnut!


I added shredded coconut and ground chocolate to the top.


Justin was REALLY excited about the cake (because I told him to!)


Brandon, contemplating that first bite.


The fudge icing is really rich so if you use it, you might want to go easy on the amount. It would also be really tasty on cupcakes or cookies.

The cake was really good and I want to try substituting pineapple juice for the water at a later date. All in all: two great recipes that need to be made by all.

Sam