Pear Pudding

A pear pudding from a cookbook

• CuisineWestern
• CategoryDessert
• CourseDessert

Ingredients

• 800 gmsCanned pear halves
• 6 tbspDemerara sugar
• 20Glace cherries
• 250 gmsButter
• 4Eggs
• 250 gmsSelf raising flour
• 220 gmsCaster sugar
• 125 gmsWalnut halves
• 3 tbspMaple syrup

Preparation

1. Line a 25 cms cake tin with grease paper and grease using butter
2. Sprinkle the sugar in a thin layer
3. Place glace cherries at the centre of each pear half and lay them along the bottom of the pan
4. Mix butter, eggs, flour and sugar in a cake mixer
5. Fold in walnuts
6. Spoon batter over pear halves
7. Place in oven at 180°C for 2 hours. Check for doneness using a table knife. If it comes out clean, the pudding is cooked.
8. Take reserved juice of the pear halves in a pan
9. Add maple syrup and thicken over a pan
10. Turn pudding over over on a plate and drizzle with thickened syrup

'Twas a time before the internet. The only way of getting new recipes was buying a cookbook. The newsagents had stacks of cookbooks from Woman's Weekly. The bookshops had cookbooks. Real ones with a no nonsense recipe and, sometimes, sumptuous pictures. One of these books was the Complete Family Cookbook for $14.95. In there, there was a recipe for an upside-down pear pudding. I was trying my hand at cooking and this looked elaborate enough to present something of a challenge.

I made it once for a gathering of friends. Before long, the demand for it was huge. I made it so many times that, every time, I swear it will be the last time. They may be sick of my 'it is not a cake, it is a pudding' protest but not the 'cake'. The page in the cookbook is the messiest of them all. The all too important pear halves are getting harder and harder to find in on supermarket shelves. But, somehow, I don't think I have seen the last of this old time classic.