A Tale of Three Fruits and Three Recipes

Pear Streusel Breakfast Buns, “A really nice, not-too-sweet breakfast treat.” (p. 16)

RECIPE LINK

ALL ABOUT INGREDIENTS: This evening, October 13, I set out to make three deserts featuring cinnamon and vanilla from Sri Lanka in honor of the work done by our students in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity. The three recipes for the evening were: 1) Apple Cake with Cinnamon Sugar Topping (already featured on October 12), 2) Pear Streusel Breakfast Buns, and 3) Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Icing. My time window for shopping two evenings prior was short. I ran to the nearest Carrefour and was unable to find two essential items intended to make the job easier – canned sliced apples and canned pumpkin purée. (Doesn’t just the mention of the word “canned” just sound awful in the context of such wonderful cooking!?) As it turns out, the lack of canned options threw me back to pure basics – fresh fruit for all the recipes. Actually, I am so relieved about the whole thing. A blessing in disguise. So…….. let’s get to it.

Take a look at them buns! Breakfast buns, that is!

Up close and personal

POTENTIAL ECSTASY: Emphasis on potential. I haven’t tasted them yet, at least not exactly. I did taste some bits that fell off or stuck here and there. The bits were from the land of YUM. What do I know so far about these buns. 1) They were made with the sweetiest, juiciest, ripiest, pears I have ever tasted. Yes, I did taste them before baking. YOU’RE NOT going to believe this — I just ate core of a couple of the pears. It was melt-in-your-mouth fruit perfection. OK. What else? 2) These are heavy buns. The recipe called for 1.5 cups of pear chunks. I put in 2.0 cups. That’s good and potentially bad. Good because the fruit is so good. Potentially bad because that much fruit added more liquid to the batter while baking. They became bubbly, like apple pie can do. I left them in longer that called for by the recipe. My FEAR is that they may not all be done in the middle, but I had to get them out of the oven because of the topping. 3) The topping. You may be able to tell by the second photo, that I piled on the topping of brown sugar, cinnamon, and MORE PEAR! It all came together in a carmelized candy topping……….. What do I think is gonna happen? The kids will let me know later this morning, but I’m crossing my fingers for a big thumbs up.