Cue the music.
Wild celebration here.
Juliet is salsa dancing down the hall and I’m wearing a silly party hat. This month marks Blue Cayenne’s fourth birthday.
Here we are writing our 315th blog post. Who knew?
Thank you for reading this blog and thank you to those of you who have given us words of encouragement. Particular thanks go to those who have served as recipe tasters for Blue Cayenne (Sarah and Gene, you know who you are!), to Marion Sutton who is Blue Cayenne’s biggest fan and promoter, and to Al Nomura, my patient and talented photography mentor. It turns out that it takes a village to sustain a food blog.
Here is a great celebratory cake: Brown Butter Cake With Bruised Pears And Walnuts. The brown butter flavor in this cake is definitely worthy of an important celebration. The cake is moist and almost puddingy (is that a word?). You will definitely want to try this one!
Brown Butter Cake With Bruised Pears and Walnuts
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 C. walnuts
- 2 1/4 sticks butter
- 1 t. vanilla paste
- 1 T. honey
- 2 very ripe medium pears
- 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 t. salt
- 6 egg whites (room temperature)
- 1 C. granulated sugar
- Whipped cream for garnish
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. and prepare a springform pan by greasing it, lining it with parchment paper and then greasing the parchment.
- Step 2 Toast walnuts. Cool walnuts to room temperature. Put the cooled walnuts into your food processor and process until the walnuts are finely ground and you are just beginning to see the walnuts turn slightly creamy. Set aside.
- Step 3 Put vanilla and butter into a medium pan and heat over high heat until the butter is golden brown and very fragrant. You will need to stir the butter mixture constantly to be sure it doesn’t burn. If you have a lot of dark sediment in your butter mixture (you will), strain it out. (It is, by the way, critical that you cool the butter mixture to room temperature. Failing to do that will result in deflating the meringue when you add the butter to the meringue.) Pour the brown butter into a large bowl, then stir in the wanuts and honey. Set the butter mixture aside to cool.
- Step 4 Peel the pears. Core them and cut out and discard any really brown pieces of pear. Cut the pears into thin slices and set aside.
- Step 5 Once your butter mixture has cooled (but before it has solidified), stir in the flour and salt. Set aside.
- Step 6 Using a hand or countertop mixer and the whisk attachment, whip the room temperature egg whites at high speed until they turn opaque. Slowly add the sugar to the egg whites and continue whisking until the egg whites are shiny and thick.
- Step 7 Next, fold the cooled brown butter mixture into the egg white mixture. Do this in three batches being careful not to deflate the egg whites.
- Step 8 Pour batter into prepared springform pan. Cover the batter with the sliced pears. Bake for 45 minutes to one hour. (My cake took an hour.) You want the top of the cake to be a golden brown and you want a cake tester or toothpick to come out clean when stuck into the middle of the cake.
This recipe was adapted from one that appears on the James Beard Foundation site here.
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