Cornmeal Pound Cake with Rosemary Syrup, Poached Pears, and Candied Rosemary

It's one of the first recipes you see when you flip through the book, and it's been haunting me ever since the project started.  I'm not sure why it nagged me so much, there doesn't seem to be anything overly special about it.   Maybe it's the candied rosemary?  That, and the fact that it has a picture, and most of the recipes do not.  I wonder if it would have stuck with me so much if there hadn't been a picture?  Anyway, I was looking for a project and my heart was set on this one.  After lunch I set about creating this dessert.

First there were vanilla poached pears.  I took my ripest pears, the ones that were on their way out, and cut them up into quarters.  They were too big to leave whole like the recipe called for, and frankly just weren't nice enough.  The poaching was easy and soon they sat cooling in the fridge.  While that was happening I made the pound cake, a half recipe mind you, in a tiny little loaf pan, the perfect size for two.  It's a cornmeal cake, both simple and easy.  Once the cake was in the oven and the pears were chilling, I candied the rosemary.  It was a much easier process than I anticipated.  I started the syrup and added my sad looking rosemary sprigs.  They cooked in the sugar for five minutes and almost right away took a quick dusting in superfine sugar.  The best part of the whole dish?  The rosemary syrup left behind!  Seriously, the syrup was so good I had it in my chai tea.  I'd make more just to have the syrup again!

It's safe to say I was a bit disappointed with the dessert.  All the opportunity was there, but I think it fell short.  The pears were okay, the pound cake was actually a nice texture. Unfortunately it tasted like nothing and the rosemary was so woody it wasn't actually edible.  The syrup was too reduced and constantly needed to be reheated to maintain a fluid consistency.  There were a few things I'd change to make them really sing.

Baking notes:
-I didn't use wine in my pear poaching liquid, I didn't have any one hand.  Instead I substituted apple juice and a tablespoon of triple sec.  Wine would have added another dimension altogether.  I also forgot to add the rosemary to the pot.
-My vanilla isn't very strong and the pound cake needed the flavour desperately.  Without good vanilla the cake tastes like very little.  I baked the pound cake in a half size loaf pan for 53 minutes.
-The candied rosemary was easier to make than I thought it would be.  Be sure to use young tender rosemary sprigs for the best texture.  The sugar used to coat the rosemary can be saved, with it's faint but delightful flavour, for another purpose.
-Next time around I would add a tablespoon more water to the syrup after I took the rosemary out to make it a little more useable.

The recipe for Cornmeal Pound Cake with Rosemary Syrup, Poached Pears, and Candied Rosemary can be found on the epicurious website.

38/569