TWD: Fold-Over Pear Torte

The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.
- - - Truman Capote "Other Voices, Other Rooms"

I'm not sure why, but the change of seasons in autumn makes brings out the "remember when" nostalgia girl in me. I don't know if it's because the heat in Houston is just so oppresive that it consumes me, and then with cooler (It's all relative, people; highs in the low 80s are cool to me right now.) weather my mind starts to function beyond the reptilian pace that summer heat seems to promote. I don't know if it's because symbollically, autumn is the last gasp of the sun's light before the dead of winter. I don't know why it happens, but I find myself driving past the house where I grew up on my way to work sometimes. I look at my bedroom window and I wonder what the room looks like now. I wonder who, if anyone, sits out by the pool in the evenings now. It's funny how life changes, don't you think? And while I don't pine to live in my childhood home again, I do drive past it and look and wonder. 

Another thing I remember about living in that house is picking fruit. My dad just loves a fruit tree, and we had a peach tree, two pear trees, and a lemon tree at that house. The pears were rock hard and nothing in the world would make them soft, but we ate them anyway. My brother and sister and I would take turns climbing up on the ladder and picking the fruit; we enjoyed picking the pears far, far more than eating the pears. 

Pears are certainly a fall fruit, and this torte was a perfect compliment to the weather we've been enjoying in southeast Texas these days. I like to think that right now in Houston we have one foot in summer and the other in autumn, so it seemed natural to toss a few plums in with the pears. 

It's funny, right now my mom and dad are building a new house, and 3/4 of their belongings are in a storage unit. I live a sort of strange existence in Houston because I live here and I work here right now, but 7/8 of my belongings are in a storage unit around DC. I have no idea where Dudley and I will live when we get married, and I hate moving so much that I've decided I don't want to unpack my things again until I'm certain I don't have to pack them up in the near future. This means that when I went to bake this torte, there wasn't a springform pan available because they are all in storage. I didn't know what to do, but Nancy and Tracey suggested a tart pan might work just as well. It was really going to be the tart pan or nothing, and I think the tart pan worked well in this recipe. The tart-torte isn't as deep as it would be in a springform pan, but it was delicious nonetheless. 

I left out the nuts and apricots and added plums, and I used a tart pan, but otherwise I followed the recipe. And, do you know, I think it's delicious. I only had one issue -- my pears were still hard after the tart had baked for an hour. Hmmm. So, note to self:  next time try to use really, really ripe pears. I actually preferred the contrast of the plums with the cream even more than the pears, and I would be very tempted to make a stone fruit version of this torte. Thanks to Cakelaw of Laws in the Kitchen for this week's pick!