Mandel Päron (Almond Pears)

Following on the recent fascination with all things Swedish is this simple yet delicious dessert. A lovely quick dessert for those times you don't want to fuss.

Serves 8

Ingredients

8 ripe pears, peel, halved, and cored
juice of 1 lemon
2tbsp of butter
350g ground almonds

cream or custard to serve

Method

Place the pears in an ovenproof dish and sprinkle with lemon juice.

Put a small piece of butter on each pear and then sprinkle the ground almonds evenly on top.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, basting once or twice with the juices, until they are soft and the almond crust is a light golden colour.

Serve warm with the cream or custard.

Appelkaka med vaniljkräm (Apple cake with vanilla cream)

This is an amazingly luscious dessert. The addition of lemon to the topping is absolutely inspired.
This was part of our Swedish Eurovision feast!

While you can eat it cold, it comes into its own when it is warm. Eating it straight out of the oven it is a slice of heaven itself. It is more of a pudding/crumble than a cake - so don't expect it to hold its form perfectly when serving!

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
7 eating apples
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup white sugar
2 egg yolk and 3 egg whites
100g ground almonds
grated rind and juice of 1/2 lemon

For the vanilla cream
double cream, whipped with 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
Butter a 20cm flan or springform tin
Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples and put in a bowl. Add in the caster sugar and cinnamon and toss till coated.
Put into baking tin.
Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg yolks and then add the almonds, lemon, and lemon rind.
In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff and then fold into the mixture.
Pour this mixture over the apples.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the golden brown on top, and tender apples on the bottom.
Serve with a dollop of vanilla cream.