A few weeks back, someone had left some homegrown pears on the giving table at church.
Mmmmm, what could I do with some delicious pears?
Not that I don't love a good salad with pears and walnuts and blue cheese, but I guess I must have been in a baking mood.
Oh, right...when am I not in a baking mood?
This is one of those oh-so-simple recipes that taste oh-so-good and is oh-so-worth the time and little trouble it takes to make it.
You'll need some pears, vanilla, cream cheese, sugar, egg, butter, flour, nuts (optional), cinnamon.
Cream butter and sugar together. Add flour and mix till nice and crumbly.
You are essentially making a nice giant sugar cookie!
Press the dough down into a springform pan. This is the base of your torte.
Now make the cheesecake mixture. Cream cheese, sugar, egg, and vanilla.
Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, right?
Pour the cream cheese mixture onto your giant cookie!
Toss your beautiful and beautifully sliced pears with a little sugar and cinnamon....
This is a nut mill. It is amazingly effective for just this sort of occasion.
Run a few walnuts through the nut mill...
Arrange pear slices in a nice circular design. Don't overdo it - which is easy to do. You think, the more the better right? But not so here because too much liquid will ruin your torte.
If you have leftover pears/juice I have just the thing. The bonus feature is coming up!
Sprinkle your perfectly-milled walnuts over the pears and bake.
Whoa! That looks pretty darn good, doesn't it? Believe me, it was.
Okay...your turn!
Pear Torte
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 pkg. (8 oz.) Cream Cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 T sugar
1/2 tsp.ground cinnamon
4 fresh pears (1-1/4 lb.), peeled, sliced
¼ cup walnuts, chopped (you can use more if you like)
Heat oven to 425 degrees F.
Beat butter and 1/3 cup sugar in
small bowl with mixer until light and fluffy. Add flour; mix well. Press onto
bottom and 1 inch up side of 9-inch springform pan.
Beat cream cheese and 1/3 cup of the
remaining sugar in same bowl with mixer until well blended. Add egg and
vanilla; mix well. Spread onto bottom of crust.
Mix remaining sugar and cinnamon. Add to pears in large bowl; toss to coat. Arrange over
cream cheese layer; top with nuts. Bake 10 minutes.
Reduce temperature to 375 degrees F;
bake torte 25 minutes or until center is set. Cool completely. Run knife around
rim of pan to loosen torte. Remove rim. Refrigerate torte 3 hours.
BONUS FEATURE!
You just might have some of those sweet and cinnamon-coated pears and the juice leftover...what to do? Do you have some yogurt?
Or better yet, a little vanilla ice cream? Feel free to heat the pears before you pour them over the ice cream!
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