This recipe completely caught me by surprise! Here I am with this beautiful piece of Mediterranean Delicacies' Dutch Goats milk cheese and all I want to do is just eat it in its original form. I do a lot of cooking with soft goats cheese, but never have I even tasted a hard goats cheese - and how delicious! Sweet and creamy, like a sweet Gouda. I knew I wanted to somehow combine this cheese with pears, and when I read about savoury cupcakes the other day, this immediately came to me and I just had to try it. Of course this was very risky, because if the result was to be terrible, I would have wasted this beautiful block of cheese! BUT...it turned out absolutely fantastic!
Ingredients:- 250g butter
- 250g castor sugar
- 4 eggs
- 60ml milk
- 500ml grated Mediterranean Delicacies Dutch Goats cheese
- 1t salt
- 250g self raising flour
- 125ml cream
- 1 tin pears in syrup
- 230g cream cheese
- 160g butter
- 600g icing sugar
- 100g walnuts
- 1T caramel sugar
Method:
- Preheat oven to 170C
- In a mixer cream the sugar and butter 1 by 1
- add the eggs and continue mixing
- add milk and grated cheese,
- then salt now while the mixer is still running slowly
- add the sieved flour till mixed
- scoop out into cupcake holders that are stuck into cupcake or muffin tins
- do not fill by more than 2/3
- bake for 25 minutes
For the creamy pear filling:
- liquidize the pairs and syrup
- reduce in a hot pan till you get to a thick consistency (like baby food) and let it cool down
- whip the cream and fold the pear reduction into the whipped cream with the back of a wooden spoon or your finger
- push a hole in the middle of the cupcake (about a third of the cupcake size)
- Fill a piping bag with the pear cream mixture and pipe into the holes
For the icing:
- On a baking tray or in a pan add the walnuts and sprinkle with the sugar.
- Roast or panfry until sugar caramelizes onto the walnuts, then let cool down
- Use the blade attachment on your food processor to cream butter and cream cheese.
- Sieve the icing sugar and slowly add to the butter and cream cheese mix as well as the salt.
- Now add the walnuts while food processor is still running until you get a smooth icing with fine crumbs of walnuts.
- Use a piping bag to decorate your cupcakes and enjoy!