pear Archives - Page 2 of 2

Pear Galette from The Salty Tart!

January 25, 2011August 24, 2022 Zoë François 17 Comments

I met Michelle Gayer’s desserts many years before I ever met her. When I was still a pastry assistant I came to work with Charlie Trotter’s Desserts, which Michelle wrote while she was the pastry chef at Trotter’s, and convinced the team to make everything out of it. Her style was entirely about the food, elegant, but not architectural and overly fussy. I did manage to bake and cook my way through her book and probably landed the Executive Pastry Chef job as a result. Fast forward a decade and I was introduced to Michelle by a mutual friend. Michelle had just moved to Minneapolis from Chicago with her family to create the desserts for a national bakery. It was one of the finest days in our fair city’s history of sweets. We became fast friends, not in the kitchen, but on the playground with our kids. The very first day I met her we talked about her dream of opening her own bakery, which seemed as inevitable as snow in Minnesota.

Happy Thanksgiving and a couple of announcements!

November 25, 2010December 26, 2018 Zoë François 17 Comments

Thank you for visiting Zoë Bakes! I wanted to write a short post to let you know how much your lovely comments of encouragement have meant to me. As many of you have noticed I’ve taken a sabbatical of sorts from blogging. I miss it and will be back soon. Jeff and I are working on our third book (Pizza and Flatbreads in Five Minutes a Day) together and it is due at the beginning of December. It is so exciting and tremendous fun, but it is like a child and has taken most of my time.

I have also been presented with an opportunity to work with one of my all time favorite Twin Cities chefs. Steven Brown, who I worked with many years ago is opening his own restaurant in Minneapolis called Tilia. I got down on my knees and begged him to let me be a part of it and help him with the desserts. What a crazy good time, playing with sugar in the presence of such an inspired chef. The picture above are just a few of the desserts I created for our first tasting together (sticky toffee cake, soaked in caramel and glazed with chocolate, a German Chocolate Cake and an apple-pear spice cake with orange cardamom glaze). It will be a menu of our interpretation of some classics, made with the best local ingredients and a whole lot of love. To find out more about Tilia and watch the process of opening a restaurant you can visit the Tilia facebook page.

and there are now gorgeous Tilia gift certificates for holiday giving. I hope you will come and visit.

I have so much to be thankful for this holiday season and I look forward to coming back to Zoë Bakes soon to blog about all that I have been working on.

Thanks, Zoë

Caramel Apple and Pear Cake

September 21, 2009July 20, 2022 Zoë François 47 Comments

This caramel apple and pear cake is rather sweet and rich so I like to use tart apples, combined with a layer of pear.

Caramel apple and pear cake recipe | ZoëBakes | Photo by Zoë François

Haralson, Honeycrisp, Honeygold, Prairie Spy, Regent, Beacon, Red Baron and dozens of other varieties of apples have all been developed at the University of Minnesota. We may be known for our 10,000 lakes, but few people outside of the state realize that we are also a leader in apples.

I didn’t realize this until my friend Stephen Durfee came to visit. Yes, it took a pastry chef from California to show me what treasures were right in my own backyard. He set up a tasting with one of the “breeders” from the University and my education of apples began at a coffee shop on campus. We tried several of their latest and greatest developments and I realized for the first time the subtle and not so subtle differences of the fruit. The textures, acid, sugars and skins were all incredibly different, she talked about the characters as though we were tasting a bottle of fine wine.