The Long-Awaited Brownies

So this is one of those recipes that I make all the time but for some reason never got around to blogging about. I made them last week for Baked Goods Friday, but I forgot to take a picture – the picture is from first semester of my senior year of college. That’s how long I’ve been meaning to blog about these brownies. 

What do I love about these brownies? Um, how about EVERYTHING. First of all, they are made with almost an entire box of butter. You simply can’t go wrong there. Second of all, you get to brown butter. I’ve been able to brown butter successfully for a few years now, but it still feels like a major accomplishment every time. Third of all, there’s the combination of chocolate, caramel-y flavor (the browned butter), and salt, courtesy of the brittle on top. Oh yes, fourth of all, the brittle. It is so good that you may want to make extra to just sit around in your freezer and eat it as a snack. Fifth of all, you can make the brownies in advance and then frost them at your leisure - the perfect way to jazz up an otherwise plain and homely brownie. Sixth of all, if you don’t feel like making brownies (in which case, what is wrong with you, you fool), you can also use the frosting and brittle on a chocolate cake to delightful effect. 

Okay, hopefully that is enough to convince you of the greatness of these brownies. The brownie recipe is here (although feel free to substitute your own favorite brownie recipe); the frosting and brittle recipe is here. 

Fallen Souffle for Fall

I don't know if anyone here uses a blog reader (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) to bookmark stuff they want to make. Maybe some of the Baking Sisters' recipes are even on your blog reader, in which case, we're flattered. Anyway, I have no such thing, but I have a rather long-running blog reader in my head. Because it's in my head, a recipe has to really be something special in order to get on this most exclusive of lists. I saw this recipe from Tartelette when she first posted it - in December 2009 - and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. This is partly thanks to the gorgeous photographs (all the photography on that site is gorgeous), but also because I thought it sounded like such a delicious, elegant recipe. Yet for some reason, I never found the time to make it. Then, one Tuesday evening, my mom came home from the CSA (something that white people do) with a bag full of tiny pears, and I vowed that I would finally take the time to make this recipe.

Honestly, I don't know why I didn't make it before - it really doesn't take much time at all, since you can poach the pears and make the batter basically simultaneously. It was very tasty, although different than I expected. The texture was much more substantial and cake-like than past souffles I've made, but I don't think I overcooked it. Also, as you can see from contrasting my photos with Tartelette's, the pears didn't collapse into the cake but rather baked inside it. Whatever, it didn't matter, it still tasted delicious. And seriously, if you didn't already, go to the original recipe page and look at the photos, they are stunning. No wonder I remembered this recipe for almost two years.

Poached Pear And Almond Fallen Souffle Cakes
From Tartelette

Makes 6

Note: you can core the pears from the bottom to about 1 inch from the top with an apple corer but these are so tiny that I just removed the stem button at the bottom. Everything else in the core baked to very soft texture and the seeds were easy to remove while eating (kind of like tails on baked shrimp).

For the poached pears:
6 mini d'Anjou pears, peeled (or other small pears like Forelles or Seckel)
1/2 cup (100gr) sugar
2-3 cloves
2-3 cardamom pods
1 stick cinnamon
5-6 allspice berries
1-2 star anise
1/2 lemon
4 cups (1 liter) water

For the cakes:
3 tablespoons (40gr) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (100gr) sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup (190ml) heavy cream
1 cup ground almonds (blanched or skin on - your preference)
1/4 cup (40gr) sorghum flour (or use 1/4 cup all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder

Prepare the pears:
Place the pears, spices, lemon and water in tall saucepan and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Lower the heat and let them simmerfor 15-20 minutes or until the pears are just soft (poke with a toothpick to check).
Remove from the water using a slotted spoon and allow to cool on paper towel or baking rack.

Prepare the cakes:
Preheat the oven to 350F and position a rack in the middle.
Slightly butter or spray 6 ramekins and place them on a baking sheet. Set aside.
In the bowl if an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffly (about 3 minutes). Add the eggs, one a time and beat well in between each addition. Reduce the speed to low and add the vanilla, heavy cream, almonds, flour and baking powder and beat until incorporated. Fill each ramekins about 1/3 full with the batter and place a poached pear in the center.
Bake for 25-30 minutes.

The Thesis Cake

This week has seen a lot of endings in my life. Last Sunday was my final show with Brown University Gilbert and Sullivan, a group I've been involved with since my freshman year, although my involvement was pretty minimal this semester. Ahead is my last Brown Spring Weekend (and also my first - long story). On Thursday, my relationship of over seven months ended. But probably the most significant ending came on Monday, when I handed in my thesis. It's 130 pages and I've been working on it for two years, and particularly since September it has been a daily presence in my life. Dropping it off at the History Department was as close as I'll come to feeling like I dropped my kid off at college for a good long time. Pride in what I've produced, relief at having so much of my time freed up, trepidation over what's going to happen now that it's out of my hands, emptiness that something in which I've invested so much and that's been such a constant part of my life is gone.

So what do you do for a milestone such as this? Make a cake, duh. My birthday was a few weeks ago and my parents got me a Jacques Torres cookbook called Dessert Circus. As befits the former pastry chef of Le Cirque, a lot of the desserts are devilishly complicated, but this seemed like an occasion for which a devilishly complicated cake might be warranted. I wanted a cake that would reflect the substance of my thesis, which was about the dissolution of the monasteries in England from 1536-40 (if you've never heard of this, don't worry, you're not alone.) I flipped through it and saw a lovely photo of a tower made from alternating layers of chocolate cake and chocolate cream, topped with a roof made from four chocolate triangles. It's called The Manhattan and it's meant to resemble a skyscraper. Then it hit me: make my own version of The Manhattan, only in the shape of a cathedral! Perhaps I would call it The Canterbury?

This cake was super-time consuming but not as hard as it looks. Because the cake recipe calls for almond paste and that stuff is expensive, I made my own using this recipe. If you have a food processor it's very simple and much, much cheaper- the only trick is to stop yourself from eating it, it's so tasty! The cake tastes extremely light because of the chiffon, and it has stayed pleasingly moist after three days (I made the cake on Wednesday). The cream is also delicious, but next time I think I would use semisweet instead of bittersweet chocolate because you can definitely taste the bitterness. I don't understand why the recipe called for so much raspberry syrup, I only used about a quarter of it, but maybe I was not sufficiently soaking my layers, since I didn't taste the raspberry much at the end. Making the roof was probably the most annoying part of the recipe, but I made an additional, even more annoying part: the church steeple. In order to create this I used Martha Stewart's recipe for caramel-dipped hazelnuts, but I couldn't find any whole hazelnuts at the grocery store so I used macadamia nuts instead. I have no idea if there's something about hazelnuts that makes them more inclined to stay on the skewer, but my macadamia nuts were NOT interested in staying on the chopstick, so I ended up sticking them in the caramel and taking them out by hand, which was quite a painful proposition. Anyway, they looked very cool but I would not recommend it if you don't have a burning need to put a steeple on your creation.

Even though it took forever, this was definitely the coolest, most ambitious thing I've ever baked, and despite everything it was so satisfying and rewarding. Just replace "baked" with "written," and you'll get how I feel about my thesis.

Viriginal Cookies for a Bachelorette

Our friend Kerrith is getting married on Sunday (mazal tov Kerrith and Derek!), so last Saturday night, two of her friends threw her a belly dancing bachelorette party. (I know what you're thinking. Rachel, don't you do anything other than go to wedding-related events? The answer to that question is no, I do not do anything else.) Anyway, the party was a potluck, and the instructions were for us to make something with a Middle Eastern theme.

Being a Baking Sister, obviously I chose to make dessert. However, I have no idea what makes a dessert Middle Eastern. So I did some research through my good friend Google and came up with these ghoraibi.

As it turns out, I had hit the jackpot, because not only are these cookies Lebanese, but they are also traditionally served at weddings, apparently. That is because they are totally white, like the bride, who is meant to be clean and pure. And additionally, if you like almonds, they are also delicious.

These cookies are super easy to make, and I really liked their almond flavor. Since butter is basically the only wet ingredient, though, they are very rich, so I recommend making them pretty small. I also think they're very pretty, and overall, suited the occasion very nicely. You can find the recipe here.

The Shabbos Kallah, Part 1: Maple Cupcakes

Two weeks ago, on 10/10/10, was the wedding of our dear friend/almost sister, Miriam Palmer-Sherman. She married a wonderful man named Dave and the whole thing was very, very beautiful. But let's get to the part that everyone cares about - the baked goods.

As Miriam's best friend, it fell to Rachel to host a Shabbos Kallah, which is basically this extremely tame Jewish bachelorette party where, instead of strippers and tequila, everyone sits around on Saturday afternoon and eats and talks about how awesome the bride is. It's all women so there's a lot of crying and chocolate and whatnot. I'm poking fun, but it's actually quite a lovely tradition, in my opinion. Plus, it was an excuse for some truly epic baking.


Perhaps too epic.

Rachel and I got our signals crossed. When she asked me to bake for the Shabbos Kallah I thought that meant I would be the only one baking, where as she thought it meant I would make an extra dish or two. Long story short, we each made four desserts. Whoops.

I knew that Miriam really likes chocolate so everything I made involved chocolate except these (you have to accommodate those crazy chocolate-haters somehow). These are nice and fall-y and pretty simple to put together. They weren't too sweet, which was important because they had a lot of syrup in them. However, I feel that you could reduce the amount of syrup and not suffer. The bottoms were, as Maida Heatter warned, soggy, and when I left them out overnight the syrup seeped through and formed little pools in the cupcake carrier.

For whatever reason, the cupcake recipe didn't come with frosting, so I just pulled one off the Internet at random. It was simple and tasty and easy to pipe, and when I sprinkled a couple of slivered almonds on top, I was proud of how pretty the cupcakes looked!

The cupcake recipe can be found here. The frosting recipe (which also comes with its own cupcake recipe, for which I cannot vouch) can be found here.

Two Thumbs Up

I am very lucky. In addition to having an adorable nephew, I have two adorable cousins. They are the daughters of my cousin Paul and his wife Stephanie, and every time I see them I'm amazed at how sweet, beautiful and well-behaved they are. They came to visit a couple of weeks ago, and after a fun day at the Children's Museum, we decided to make cookies. I decided on thumbprint cookies from "Baking from My Home to Yours." I substituted almonds for hazelnuts, since that's what we had in the house.

They were a lot of fun to make, although the girls needed some help with the thumbprints and were impatient about waiting for the cookies to cool to add the jam. Still, it allowed them to feel like they were an important part of the cookie-making process, and that was kind of the point. As for the final cookies: Paula, the older girl, really liked them, but Maya found the almonds a little too sophisticated for her palate. I thought they were yummy, though. And they sure liked the dough!

The master bakers at work

THUMBPRINTS FOR US BIG GUYS by Dorie Greenspan from “Baking: From My Home To Yours”

1 3/4 cups finely ground hazelnuts
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 sticks (8 oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
Confectioner’s sugar, for dusting
About 1 cup raspberry jam (or the jam or marmalade of your choice)

GETTING READY: Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Whisk together ground nuts and flour.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the extracts and beat to blend. Reduce the mixer speed to low and gradually add the nut-flour mixture, mixing only until it is incorporated into the dough.

Working with a teaspoonful of dough at a time, roll the dough between your palms to form small balls and place the balls 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Steadying each cookie with the thumb and forefinger of one hand, use the pinkie of your other hand (or the end of a wooden spoon) to poke a hole in the center of each cookie. Be careful not to go all the way down to the baking sheet.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point. The cookies should be only slightly colored–they may even look underdone, which is fine: they should not be overbaked. When the cookies are baked, remove the baking sheets from the oven and let the cookies rest on the sheets for 2 minutes before transferring them to cooling racks with a wide metal spatula and sifting confectioner’s sugar over them.

Repeat with the remaining dough, remembering to cool the baking sheets before baking the next batch.

Bring jam to a boil in a small saucepan over low heat, or bring to a boil in a microwave oven; remove from the heat. Fill the indentations of all the cookies with enough of the hot jam to come level with the tops. Cool to room temperature.

Guest Post: The Baking Sisters' Dad

For those of you who regularly read this blog, you might notice that we never reference our mom's homemade baked goods.  That's because she doesn't bake.  However, our dad does.  He is a great baker and cook and we get most of our skills from him.  If you don't believe us, here is the proof.

Let me start by thanking the Baking Sisters for inviting their dad to guest blog.  I must admit that, with three such wonderful bakers in the family, I’ve gotten out of the baking habit.  When I had occasion to make cakes two weeks in a row, it seemed right to blog about them. 

In my baking heyday, Maida Heatter was the high priestess of baking.  Her recipes were not only wonderful, but also so detailed and clear that they were foolproof as long as you mastered the techniques.  For this reason, I thought of her as the Julia Child of baking.  Flash forward to the 21^st century, and I’m very pleased to add Dorie Greenspan to the cookbook shelf.  She is, of course, one of the Baking Sisters’ major inspirations.

But these cakes come from other sources.  Both cakes were prepared for Shabbat dinners, and since they were meat meals, I needed recipes that contained no dairy products.  The first cake was for the birthday of the Baking Sisters’ mom, so it had to be chocolate.  The second cake was to take along to dinner at the home of our friends Richard and Rae Janvey, so Torta Del Re seemed appropriate.  (It’s also almost Passover, and this makes a wonderful dessert for the seder.)  When we served the cake, the conversation turned to baking, and then to the Baking Sisters, and then to Sarah’s seven hour round trip from Providence to New York to attend Dorie Greenspan’s three hour master class for Dalton School alumni.  Low and behold, who did we discover is the Janveys’ next-door neighbor?  None other than Dorie Greenspan!

The chocolate cake comes from Kosher by Design, by Susie Fishbein (the first of several books in the Kosher by Design series).  It’s actually Chocolate Banana Cake, which automatically rules it out for Rebecca (who hates bananas), although I thought the banana gave the cake moisture with little or no banana taste.  To make it parve, I used parve margarine, Tofutti “sour cream” and non-dairy “whipping cream.”  If dairy is OK, you can use the real things.  Here’s the recipe, with my comments in brackets.

CHOCOLATE BANANA CAKE

Kosher by Design, by Susie Fishbein

Serves 12

Cake:

1 cup pure vegetable shortening

2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

2 ripe (not brown) bananas, mashed [I pulsed them briefly in a mini-food processor]

1/3 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/3 cup cocoa

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup boiling water

Glaze:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter or margarine

6 tablespoons heavy whipping cream or non-dairy whipped topping

3 ounces milk semi-sweet chocolate [I used bittersweet instead]

1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1-1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Grease a 10-inch tube pan or bundt pan; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the shortening and sugar until fluffy [I used a stand mixer].  Add the eggs, one at a time.  Add the bananas, sour cream, and vanilla, and mix until all are incorporated.

In a separate large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cocoa, and salt.  Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture in three parts, alternating with the boiling water.  Mix.  The batter will be runny [it actually wasn’t too runny].  Pour into prepared pan.  Bake for one hour.  [Allow the cake to cool for 15 or 20 minutes before removing it from the pan.  Place it on a cake plate and place strips of waxed paper under all sides of the cake to catch the excess glaze.]

For the glaze, combine butter or margarine, cream, chocolate, morsels, sugar, and vanilla in a heavy saucepan over low heat.  Cook, whisking constantly, until smooth.  Cool slightly.  Pour over the cake, letting it run down the sides and trying not to manipulate the glaze too much.  Let the glaze set.  Cake can be refrigerated, but bring to room temperature before serving.  [It keeps well and stays moist even without being refrigerated.]

I found Torta Del Re (King’s Cake) in volume one of The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews by Edda Servi Machlin.  The author grew up in Pitigliano, a medieval village in the hill country between Rome and Florence that had had a flourishing Jewish community for centuries.  Her story of life – and food – in Pitigliano and how it all came to an end in the aftermath of the Nazi occupation of Italy must be the most beautiful, poignant tale to be found in any cookbook.  The 20 pages that describe life in Pitigliano are worth the price of the book, although it has many terrific recipes, too. 

TORTA DEL RE

The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews, by Edda Servi Machlin

Serves 12 

2 tablespoons sweet butter or [to make it parve] non-dairy margarine

2 tablespoons fine breadcrumbs or matza meal

5 eggs, separated

1 small pinch of salt

1-1/4 cups granulated sugar

2-1/2 cups (10 ounces) blanched almonds, chopped very fine [in a food processor]

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

Grated rind of 1 lemon

Confectioners sugar

Sliced almonds, toasted [spread on a baking sheet and put under the broiler, far from the heat, for a few minutes; stir a couple of times and watch carefully to make sure they don’t burn]

Grease a 10-inch spring form pan and sprinkle with breadcrumbs or matza meal; set aside.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Beat the egg whites with salt until stiff and dry.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until foamy, then gradually add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is lemon-colored.  Gradually add the chopped almonds, then the two extracts and the lemon rind.  You should have a very hard paste.  [For this reason, I strongly suggest using a stand mixer.]  Mix 1/3 of the beaten egg whites with the almond mixture to make it softer.  Delicately fold in the remaining egg whites and pour into the prepared pan.

Place in the center of the middle rack in the preheated oven and bake for one hour without opening the oven door.  After the hour is over, leave the oven door ajar for 10 to 15 minutes; then remove the pan from the oven and place it upside down on a cooling rack [I’m not sure why it has to be upside down; and no, the cake doesn’t fall out.]  When the cake is thoroughly cool, remove it from the pan and place it upside down over a cake dish.  [Since the bottom will be the top of the cake, you will want the cake to come out cleanly.  Try running a sharp, thin knife between the cake and the bottom of the pan to make sure nothing sticks.]  Top with confectioners sugar, using a sifter, and sprinkle with toasted sliced almonds.

Cocoa Almond Meringues

I am really not a nuts person.  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that we don't like nuts in our baked goods (especially not in brownies -- yuck).  You might think that we don't like these cookies, since they are called cocoa ALMOND meringues, but you would be wrong because they are delicious and we love them.

I first made them because I had so many left over egg whites from making ice cream and the whites were taking up space in my freezer.  I don't know where I first learned this trick, but when I separate eggs, I freeze the whites in small ziplock containers.  When the white is frozen, I pop it out and keep all the whites in a bag and use them when I need them.  However, my bag of frozen whites was getting kind of full, so I decided to make meringues with them.

This is another Dorie great and they are melt in your mouth delicious.  And, even though they are made out of egg whites, they are surprisingly forgiving.  I could not find the ground almonds that the recipe called for, so I chopped them by hand in my nut chopper and even though the pieces were not that well ground, they still worked.  I also didn't chop the chocolate so fine, and they were still delicious.  I liked finding a little bit of nuts or chocolate in each bite.  I highly recommend these cookies, if you have extra egg whites lying around (or even if you don't).  They are light and delicious.  

Here is the recipe:

1 cup powdered sugar plus more for dusting

1/3 cup finely ground almonds

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

4 large egg whites, at room temperature

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup very finely chopped bittersweet chocolate or finely chopped store bought chocolate chips

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.  

Sift together the powdered sugar, ground almonds and cocoa.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the egg whites and salt on medium speed until the whites are opaque.  Increase the speed to medium high and continue to whip as you add the sugar, about 1 tablespoon at a time.  Then whip until the whites are firm and hold stiff peaks, they should still be very shiny.  

Beat in the vanilla, and remove the bowl from the mixer.  With a large rubber spatula, quickly but gently fold in the dry ingredients, followed by the chopped chocolate.  The whites will inevitably deflate as you fold in the dry ingredients, just try to work rapidly and use a light touch, so you deflate them as little as possible.

Drop the meringue by tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between the cookies.  Dust the meringues lightly with powdered sugar (I skipped this step by accident).

Bake for 10 minutes, then without opening the oven door, reduce the oven to 200 degrees F and bake for one hour more.  Remove the baking sheets from the oven and allow the meringues to stand in a cool, dry place until they reach room temperature.

And The Missing Ingredient Is...

As avid readers of the blog will know, in December we made a fabulous Dorie Greenspan French pear tart with almond cream. It was so good that we quickly dubbed it one of the best things we've ever made, and I stand by that assessment. What could be better than pears and almonds? How about pears, almonds...and chocolate?

I found a UK measurements-friendly recipe at a blog called Tasty Diaries, and though the author calls it a fondant it bears no relation to that nasty crap people use to decorate wedding cakes. The chocolate feels like it's melting in your mouth and the flavors blend beautifully with each other. I had to crush the almonds by hand and they weren't very well ground but I actually liked it that way, since it made the texture more interesting. Just a warning: do NOT overbake this. It says in the recipe that the crust will be ultra-thin - it MEANS ultra-thin, in fact, hardly there at all! I ended up leaving it in too long and it got a little burnt on the bottom and around the edges. This was problematic, though not as problematic as when my friend Pam accidentally knocked it off the table and it landed face-down on the floor. Luckily, we're not that discriminating, and she, our friend Nikhita and I picked it up quickly and ate the entire thing in half an hour. Yummmm.

Oh and P.S. The best thing about this cake? It has no flour so it's kosher for Passover, and it doesn't even taste like it's kosher for Passover!

To-die-for 15 min chocolate, almond and pear fondant

Ingredients:

200 g 70% cocoa good quality dark chocolate

150 g lightly salted butter

4 eggs (4 whites, 1 yolk)

80 g ground almonds

100 g sugar

3 ripe pears

This recipe works perfectly with my square 25 x 25 cm loose base non-stick cake pan. If you don’t have a loose base dish, use a silicone one instead for easier demoulding, or cover the bottom of your dish with a piece of greaseproof paper cut to size. Blogger's note: I used a round tin, worked very well.

Preheat the oven to 175 degree C

Cut the chocolate and butter into chunks and melt together in the microwave in a medium size mixing bowl. With my 850kW microwave, it takes 90 sec. Start with a 1 min session, mix well, and do another 30s. After that stir any unmelted chocolate chunks into the melted mixture, using the residual heat to finish the job. If you don’t have a microwave, place the chocolate and butter into a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and stir regularly. Take out of the heat as soon as the ingredients have melted.

In a second bowl, lightly beat the egg whites and sugar with a fork until the mixture looks homogenous, for about 20 sec. Do not use an electric mixer for this, you don’t want the whites to bubble more than with a quick beating. This cake is not supposed to rise or be fluffy.

Add the almonds to the chocolate mixture and stir well. Dip your finger into the mixture, it should be just warm, i.e. you should not have any sensation of heat. If you do, wait a bit before adding the egg yolk otherwise it may curd. Add the egg yolk and stir energetically.

Pour the egg white mixture into the chocolate one and stir until reaching a homogenous batter.

Butter your cake dish and pour the batter into it.

Peel, quarter and core the pears, and cut into segments about 3 mm thick. Press the segments into the batter following a pretty pattern (concentric circles for a round mould, or neat, parallel lines for a square one) and leaving the tops of the segments visible. Make sure you place them very close to each other - leaving about 1 cm between each slice. You may not use up all the pears, I tend to fill my dish with 2 1/2 pears.

Bake for 35 minutes. Don’t worry if the cake feels a bit soft and creamy under its ultra thin crust, it will set when cooling down. Wait until the cake is nearly cold for demoulding it unless you have a loose base dish.

Eat the fondant warm or cold. The slices will be easier to cut once it is cold, but I usually can’t wait, even if it is much messier!