Une petite douceur pour le déjeûner… ou pas – Mini manqués aux poires et la confiture de mûres

Not that I particularly love to celebrate my birthday as a great or special day at all, but it’s the nostalgic side of me that talking. I like to do something different every year because I want to remember it the following years. I don’t like to see time go by, so every year for 12 October, I do something I remember…Year after year, I look back and I think about that particular time. I think it’s a family disease, we are all so nostalgic in my family, probably because when you leave your country, you tend to get attached to what reminds you of your past where you grew up. I don’t know.

Those cakes do not remind me of my childhood but they’re so good that I used them as my birthday cakes. I am not crazy about traditional birthday cakes, nor their overly sweet icing. We call those manqués, basically a manqué is a cake with butter, a topping but needs to have a certain thickness.  I had some ripe pears that were left out after the chocolate crêpes, and wanted to use them in something sweet.

Those little cakes are great for breakfast, they have a particularly soft and velvety texture that melts in your mouth and they’re filled with a mixture of healthy wholegrain flours. I had some chestnut flour that I absolutely love in desserts, it gives a sweet nutty taste that would give any cake a very unique touch.

Usually for breakfast I don’t have anything too sweet, just some toasts with jam and coffee, not really cakes. When I am in France I get croissants and pains au chocolat for the first couple of days, then after the croissants orgy, I go back to toasts since they’re less heavy in butter.

I figured those manqués would better be served for dessert with some whipped cream but this morning I had no more bread left, so one of those cakes did the job, and honestly it’s a wonderful breakfast treat. From now on, I will make them for breakfast, beside you can keep them for a few days in a plastic container, they do not dry up at all.

Ingredients for 4 individual cakes

• 2 pears, peeled and sliced
• 70 g butter, melted
• 2 eggs
• 80 g wholewheat flour
• 50 g chestnut flour
• 50 g white flour
• 100g light brown sugar
• 2 tbs heavy cream
• 3 tbs blackberry jam
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preparation

In a mixing container, beat eggs and butter for a couple of minutes until the mixture becomes smooth. Add cream, then add eggs, flours, vanilla extract, cream and baking powder progressively.

Butter individual deep molds (like ramequin type) or if you have silicon molds, even better. If you don’t have any individual molds, you can also use a larger deep dish one. Place nicely pear slices at the bottom of each ramequin, then divide batter equally between each of them.

Cook in a pre-heated oven at 376F for about 30 minutes. Let it cool for about 10 minutes, and unmold. Warm jam in a small pan until it gets a little more liquid, then add jam on top of each manqué and serve.

Breakfast/Brunch, Desserts