Poached pear, milk chocolate and roasted hazelnut blondies
My love for blondies is one that goes bone deep. The nutty, caramel aromatics of browned butter and vanilla, the melting, moreish, fudge-like texture, with it’s golden crust, lending a pleasant crumbling crunch – heaven. I trust there is no bad combination of fillings when the base flavours are that of brown sugar and brown butter, but I think that this particular combination is my favourite to date. Fresh pear, poached until tender, gently spiced with cardamom, cinnamon stick and lemon. Hazelnuts roasted until a deep golden flesh lies beneath a burnished, crumbling skin. Both work beautifully with creamy milk chocolate. A glorious trinity of flavours and texture.
Makes 8-10 blondies
Ingredients
Poached pears:
Medium pears, 2
Cinnamon stick, 1
Cardamom pods, 7-8
Lemon peel, 2-3 2 inch pieces
Blondies:
Browned unsalted butter, 200g – start with around 250g
Light brown sugar, 250g
Dark brown sugar, 40g
Large eggs, 2
Vanilla extract, 1 tbsp
Sea salt, 1/2 tsp
Plain flour, 200g
Hazelnuts, 60g, roasted and roughly chopped
Milk chocolate, 100g, roughly chopped
For the hazelnuts:
Preheat oven to 220C/200 fan. Place your hazelnuts on a baking tray and place in the preheated oven for 15 or so minutes. Keep and eye on them. We want them golden with a darkened skin, but not burnt. Once this has been achieved, remove from the oven and let cool slightly. Place the hazelnuts on half of a clean dishtowel, then place the other half on top. Roughly rub the hazelnuts to underneath the dishtowel to remove the skins. Discard the skins and chop the hazelnuts roughly.
For the poached pears:
Peel your two medium pears and place in a small pot filled with hot water, ensuring the pears are fully covered with water. To the water, add a cinnamon stick broken in half, the cardamom pods, cracked open, and the lemon peel. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, and poach for 25 mins. Remove from the heat after this time, leave the pears in the water for 5 minutes, then carefully removed from the water, and let cool slightly. Once cooled, slice each pear in half, and then slice each of the halves into thin slices, length-wise. I sometimes cut one of the four halves into small cubes and stir this into the blondie mixture, too.
For blondies:
Preheat the oven to 180C/160 fan and line a 20x20cm baking tray with foil; press gently but firmly into the sides and corners, doing your best to smooth out the creases.
Brown the butter: Place the butter in a shallow pot or pan on medium heat, stirring with a spatula, until it becomes golden and aromatic. Be sure to scrape the bottom and sides firmly as it browns to ensure that the browned particles don’t stick to the pot or pan – these are browned milk solids, and we want to keep these. Pour the melted butter and scrape the browned milk solids into a large bowl, or bowl of a stand mixer.
Add the light and dark brown sugars to the bowl of melted butter and whisk until homogeneous, about one minute on a stand mixer.
Add in the eggs, one at a time, whisking between each addition. Once both eggs have been added, add the vanilla extract and salt, and whisk on medium/high until the mixture is thick, lighter in colour, and ribbons.
Sift the flour into the wet mixture, and use a spatula to fold until half incorporated. Add in the chopped chocolate, chopped roasted hazelnuts, and cubes of pear from one of the four halves, if adding. Mix until well combined and no flour is visible.
Pour the mixture into your prepared baking tray, smoothing the top as best as you can with the back of a spoon or spatula. Arrange your pear slices on top of the blondie mixture, pressing them in gently. Note: keep in mind that the placement of the pears can be used to dictate where you will cut your cooled blondies.
Place in the oven and bake until dry when gently touched and glossy, around 30-35 minutes.
Remove and let cool completely before cutting – place in the fridge to speed up the process if you like.
