Week 48: Pear Bars

This week I chose to make pear bars.  The decision was simple as I have a ton of pears left from the "Pears Gone Wild" party that I attended at Jim and Kim's house a few weekends ago.  I found the recipe in one of my cookbooks titled  "1001 Cookie Recipes."  I have a few cookbooks devoted just to cookies and desserts, so I began my search there.  This recipe was different than all the others thus far, in that it did not include sugar in the list of ingredients. Weird right?  I thought so.  The recipe does include a filling made entirely of dates, and dates are pretty sweet. So that's the reason for the omission of the sugar in the recipe.  I did add a bit of sugar to the dough though...about 1/8 of a cup as I don't think Victoria and Ryan will like a cookie that isn't sweet.  I also sprinkled the top of the bars with a cinnamon sugar mixture to give the bars a crunchy top layer. In addition to the substitution I usually make regarding the flour, I swapped the oil for applesauce. The resulting bars have a texture similar to that of a cake or a muffin.  They aren't really what I'd categorize as a cookie.  This recipe isn't a recipe that I'd have sought out of it weren't for all the pears I have left over.  That said I am glad that I tried it as it was different and interesting.  Here is a link to a recipe that is very similar to the one that I used: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Home-Bakery/message/3654  There are a few differences in the baking methods between the recipe that I used and the link above.  In my recipe you add the nutmeg right into the dough.  Also, in the recipe that I used you bake the bars in one pan (you divide the pear dough in half and layer in the pan as follows: 1/2 pear dough, date filling, other 1/2 of pear dough.)

One of our pear trees

As I made the cookies for this week I thought about pears.  I like pears, but they are not at the top of my "favorite fruit" list.   Dan and the kids really like pears though, so we planted a couple of  pear trees in "The  Sutherland Orchard."  We haven't been able to yield more than 1 or 2 pears from our own trees yet as they are still pretty young.  Personally, I prefer to pair pears with other fruit. (ha ha pair pears ☺). Actually,  I love to pair pears (ha there it is again ☺) and apples together in pies and other recipes.  I prefer pear as more of a background flavor, versus being the prominent flavor in a dish. I was intrigued by this recipe as it did just that...it paired pears (third time's a charm ☺) with dates.  I still have a ton of pears left over, and in the next few days I plan to use a lot of them in different recipes.  I am planning to make pear sauce, apple/pear bread, and a pear pie. YUM!

In searching for a recipe link to post with this blog, I "Googled" pears.  Man there is a ton of information about pears out there.  I perused a lot of the material and found this tidbit to be especially interesting.  In the ancient Chinese culture, pears are seen as a symbol of immortality as pear trees live a long time.  Interestingly, however, the ancient Chinese believed that it was bad luck for friends or lovers to share a pear, as the same Chinese word (fen li) is used to describe either a pear or separation. Therefore if you ever travel to China, you should eat a whole pear by yourself and not offer to share it.  I don't plan on ever traveling to China, but an interesting piece of trivia nonetheless. ☺

Halloween 2011 

This week has been a whirlwind.  With Halloween having been on Monday, aka a school night, I feel like we upset the balance of our week day routine. Thankfully, it is almost the weekend.  I am looking forward to spending some quality time in the kitchen, and using the rest of my pears to make yummy recipes for my family. Who knows I may even try another pair of pear cookie recipes...stay tuned! ♥