How much do you love your pears? I can't get enough of them at the moment. Last weekend I was craving pears, so I bought a whole load of these beauties to make something delicious with them and I knew they'd be perfect in clafoutis.
Last week was such an exciting week, until I found out that I was the overall winner of the Does My Blog Look Good In This (DMBLGIT) contest for my Macaron Cake - then it just turned into an amazing week! Can you imagine dear readers, little old me, winning something? I've never won anything in my life!
I'd just like to say a massive 'THANK YOU' to all the judges that voted for my photo, and especially David, the host of this month's contest. Had I known how averse he was to seeing macarons in photos, I probably would have never submitted my photo. But then, I guess I never would have won!
So this week Dear Readers, I'm trying a little poll, and I'd love to know:
If you have won something, what was it?
If you've never won anything, what would you love to win?
Please leave your answers in the comments section below.
I'd also like to say a big THANK YOU to all of you that commented last week. Your time management tips and tricks have been so helpful - I learned so much. As for last week's Moleskine Recipe Journal giveaway, the winners are: Sarah (Maison Cupcake), Paula P, and M3card. I'll be emailing you soon and I'll send you your journals as soon as I get your postal details. Congratulations and thanks so much for commenting!
On a more serious note, my darling friend Jeanne of Cook Sister is running a raffle to try and raise money for the H2Ope for Haiti campaign run by the Concern Worldwide charity. Jeanne asked me to take part in the raffle by donating a prize, so I donated:
- £200 worth of Virgin vouchers (given to me as a gift, but I thought they'd be more useful here) (prize code HFH28)
- A set of 5 of my original floral photographic prints (see below) (prize code HFH25)
If you are interested in these, or in any of the other 28 prizes on Jeanne's blog, all you have to do is make a note of the prize code for the prize you are interested in, then make a £6.50 (US$10) donation at the Just Giving - H20pe for Haiti website. Each donation will buy you one virtual raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice.
Concern Worldwide, a non-governmental international humanitarian organisation, founded in 1968, was selected because of its long track record and quick response after the quake to provide clean drinking water and water purification tablets.
The money raised by this raffle will be paid directly into Concern Worldwide's account by Justgiving and will be used exclusively for the Haiti relief effort.
Although each person's donation may be small, even single drops of water will eventually fill a swimming pool.
Pear Clafoutis (printable version)
3 pears
65g plain flour
65g caster sugar
3 eggs
227ml single cream
Seeds of 1 vanilla bean (or 1tsp vanilla essence)
Some cinnamon sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C. Grease a 12 cup muffin tray, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
2. Quarter pears and add a quarter to each muffin cup.
3. Mix flour, vanilla and sugar together.
4. Add the cream and whisk together.
5. Add the eggs and combine.
6. Pour mixture into muffin tray, in each muffin cup, over the pears.
7. Bake in the oven for roughly 20 minutes. Serve hot drizzled with raspberry coulis.
Tip: As you can see in the photos, I made two different versions of clafoutis, one without bicarbonate of soda, and one with. The ones without bicarbonate of soda deflated very soon after they were taken out of the oven and allowed to cool. To prevent this from happening again, I made another batch with the addition of 1tsp of bicarbonate of soda, and that kept the second batch nice and fluffy, while still maintaining the typical clafoutis texture.
