Well, I managed to do it again. As usual, my brain appeared to be elsewhere when I was shopping and I completely miscounted the cream cheese. This is absolute proof that my brain has a limited ability to function when asked to do one thing at a time. This should not have been hard. For the first time in forty-two years I was not cooking a big family dinner on Christmas Eve. The only assignment I had was to make a dessert for Christmas dinner at Tom’s sister’s.

Maybe it was because it was the first time in forty-two years that Tom and I were going to be alone on Christmas Eve. This was a bit of a hurdle for us. We’ve always hosted dinner on Christmas Eve. It started with dinner for my side of the family and grew through the years to include just about anybody. One year we had a very handsome policeman drop by to be stared at by three giggly teenage girls.

At any rate to get back to the matter at hand, I decided to make a pear tart. The pear tart that I make is quite delicious, if I do say so myself. But the cookie crust is a little tricky. It’s easy to overcook it. So I baked the crust Christmas Eve and planned to fill it Christmas morning giving myself plenty of time to make another one if necessary.  But it wasn’t necessary. The crust was perfect. A little crispy, just brown enough, good enough to eat.

Cookie crust the way it should be

So Christmas morning in an effort to fight off the blues I was feeling not having my kids there, I looked at this crust and smiled. Then I got busy making the filling. Well, not exactly making it. But very busy looking for the cream cheese which is the basis of it. I know I had some. I had made a list. I went to the store and remembered to bring the list. And, best of all, I actually read the list and got what was on it. So the cream cheese had to be there. Didn’t it?



Christmas dessert

Luckily it was early in the day when I searched for the cream cheese. Strangely enough, while I did not have any actual cream cheese, I did have all the ingredients for a Bundt cake, including heavy cream and cake flour. And it was pretty darned good, but not as good as a Pear Tart!