PEAR PIE WITH NUTTY CRUST

For the crust:

• 30 g cold butter
• 60 g flour
• 30 g brown sugar
• 50 g nuts (you can use pecans, hazelnuts, greek nuts, almonds or whatever you prefer!)
• 1 tspn gingerbread spice mix (it includes cinnamon, ginger, ground cloves, some allspice)

For the pie:

• 6-7 ripe pears
• 70 g butter
• 250 g flour
• 200 g brown sugar
• 250 ml yogurt, non-flavored
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 lemon juice and zest
• 1 tbspn orange zest
• 1 1/2 tspn baking powder
• 2 tspns gingerbread spice mix

First of all, you should prepare the crust so it would have enough time to cool in the freezer. In a bowl, add in flour and brown sugar. Grate in cold butter and mix everything carefully with your fingers. Make sure that the ingredients are well combined, but do not melt the butter. Pour the mixture into a small food container and put it into a freezer.

Now you can finally start preparing your pie! In a pot, melt the butter. Take a bigger bowl and add in 4 eggs, sugar and mix everything until foamy. Pour in the yogurt, butter and combine everything well. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and the spices and sift everything into the egg mixture. Peel the pears and cut them into thin slices. Squeeze the lemon on top of the pears, pour some lemon and orange zest and carefully cover all of the pears with juice and zest using your fingers. Add the pears into the pie batter and combine everything slowly. Take a baking pan, cover it with parchment paper and pour in the batter.

In a pan, roast some nuts and remove as many bitter peels as you can. Take the crust mixture from the freezes and add in the spices and chopped nuts. Mix everything well and pour it on top of the pie.

Preheat the oven up to 180ºC (356ºF) and bake the pie for about 45 minutes. After that, you can change the oven mode for about 5 minutes to roast the nuts and crust a little. Enjoy!

You can serve this pie when it’s warm with ice cream or vanilla yogurt. But it is also delicious when it’s cold!

 

 

CRANBERRY CHEESECAKE TARTS

Hello there! Since it’s December already, I’ve decided to share a bit more wintery and Christmassy recipe. I think it doesn’t really matter where you live- you would probably find cranberries in any larger local store. But it’s a bit difficult to describe the tart filling because many countries have different cottage/ cream cheese. I’d recommend using cream cheese which is sweet already (so you wouldn’t need to add sugar), but if you couldn’t find any, just add some sugar to it.

For 10 tarts (depends on the mini tart pan size):

• 70 g room temperature butter
• 250 g flour
• 1 tbspn honey
• 1 tbspn greek yoghurt
• 1 1/2 tspn cinnamon
• 1 tspn baking powder
• 2 tspns gingerbread spice mix (includes ground ginger, nutmeg, ground cloves)
• 300 g cream cheese
• 4 small eggs
• 120 g sugar (if cream cheese is unsweet)
• 1 tbspn gelatin powder
• 1/2 cup cranberries
• 1/4 cup sugar (for cranberries) + 120 g (for the batter)

Take a bowl, add in butter, 1 egg, 120 grams of sugar and mix well. Take a small pot and add in honey to warm it. Add liquid honey and greek yoghurt to the egg mix. In another bowl, mix together all the spices, flour and baking powder and pour into the  batter. Put it into refrigerator for an hour. Take the gelatin powder and dissolve in water (follow the instructions on the package). In a bowl, mix the cream cheese, 3 eggs, 120 grams of sugar (if the cream cheese isn’t sweet) and gelatin. Take the cranberries and 1/4 cup sugar and put them into the food chopper. Wait, until the cranberries are chopped into small pieces. Put them into the cream cheese mix and put everything into refrigerator for 30 minutes or until it’s almost stiffened. Take the batter out of the refrigerator and roll it up thinly. Then, take the mini tart pans and brush them thinly with softened butter so the dough wouldn’t stick to the pan. Place the batter on the pan and pierce it with a fork.

Repeat with all the pans. Preheat the oven to 180ºC  (356.00ºF). Put the tarts into the oven. After 7 minutes, take them out and pour the cream mix on top.

Again, put the tarts into the oven, but this time for about 30 minutes (keep an eye on them!). Let them cool.

I hope you will try out this recipe! If you did, please let me know! Good evening!