Denise says:

  • This is a luxurious tray bake filled with juicy fresh pears and poppy seeds and topped with a marzipan crumble that also happens to be vegan.
  • Preparation Time: 40 minutes plus 1 hour proving
  • Cooking Time: 50 minutes
  • Serves: 8-10 people

Ingredients:

  • 850g pears – peel, quarter, and core, cubed
  • 1 tablespoon caster sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons poppy seeds
  • ~
  • For the base
  • 200g spelt flour
  • 40g caster sugar
  • Pinch salt
  • 100ml non-dairy milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 7g (1 sachet) dried yeast
  • 40g non dairy margarine – cut into cubes
  • For the Crumble
  • 120g spelt flour
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 60g non dairy margarine
  • 100g marzipan
  • 1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method

  1. Mix the pears, poppy seeds, sugar and vanilla together. Set aside.
  2. For the base, combine the flour, sugar, salt and margarine in a bowl. Gently warm the soya milk and vanilla extract in a small saucepan over a low heat. Pour this into a separate bowl, add the yeast to the milk and leave to stand for 10 minutes.  (The milk must be just warm – if too hot it will kill the yeast!) Whizz the flour and milk mixture together to combine.
  3. Cover and leave to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.
  4. Line a 25cm x 32cm  baking tray with baking parchment paper. Roll the dough out on it creating a slight rim around the edge. Leave to prove (rise again) for about 20 minutes.
  5. Preheat the oven to 180C.
  6. To make the crumble, mix the flour with the sugar. Add the margarine and marzipan in little pieces, working them with your fingers to create a crumbly texture. Add the vanilla extract.
  7. Spread the pear mixture evenly over the base. Scatter the crumble over the filling.
  8. Bake for 40-50 minutes.  Remove and leave to cool before cutting up into squares.
Tagged in: Dessert, Marzipan, Pears, poppy seed, Purim, tea, Vanilla Extract, Vegetarian, winter, yeast