Mennonite Girls Can Cook is a collection of recipes which were posted daily for a period of ten years from 2008 to 2018. We have over 3,000 delicious recipes that we invite you to try. The recipes can be accessed in our recipe file by category or you can use the search engine.

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Pear Pudding Soup


I have no idea how many readers are familiar with the custard-like fruit soups that some of our grandmothers made. One that is very familiar to me is made with a canned pear-apple compote. My mom cans this every Fall, knowing that we all love to get jars of this fruit to add to porridge or use in pear soup. For a quick tutorial you can check here.
The fruit is like a chunky applesauce, yet with more of the pear flavor. Mixed into a thin, vanilla custard, we enjoy this soup alongside pan fried potatoes and farmer sausage or ham. I compare the flavor to a "milkshake with fries" combo.


Ingredients for one time fruit compote:


  • 3 cups pears, chopped
  • 2 cups apples, chopped
  • ¾ cups water
  • 2 tablespoons sugar


Method:


  1. Bring to a boil and cook for about 40 min, or until fruit looks clear and glazed with most of the water evaporated. Cool. Keeps well in fridge.

Ingredients for vanilla custard:
  • 4 cups milk, divided
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • ½ teaspoon pure vanilla powder or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • fruit compote



Method:
  1. In a 2 quart size pot, bring 3 ½ cups milk to a boil.
  2. In the meantime (in a small bowl) mix flour, sugar, vanilla and enough of the ½ cup milk just to make a paste.
  3. Add eggs, stirring them in well, then the rest of the (1/2 cup) milk.
  4. When the milk in the pot begins to boil, stir in the egg mixture and continue stirring until thick and smooth, bubbling gently.
  5. Remove from heat. Add cold fruit compote, for just the right temperature to serve.

13 comments:

  1. We never had the apple pear combo but the same base with other fruits. Saskatoon comes to mind first.

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  2. Oh this sounds really good. I've never had it, and plan on trying it this weekend. Thank you for sharing.

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  3. Do you prepare the fruit several hours before so it is cold when you add it to the hot custard? Or is it room temp?

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  4. I remember my mother-in-law making this and yes, it's very yummy.
    Nice to now have an actual recipe for it.
    Thanks for sharing it with all of us!

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  5. Love the recipe! A true Mennonite dish - never heard it called pudding or soup though. The Mennonite name is Pear Moos -pronounced mouse in high German:)My Mom makes it for the grandkids. We eat it with the meal like you but make it with pears and raisins. Nice to have the recipe written down. Thanks MGCC so much for all the great recipes - I've used many and all are soo goood!!!

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  6. I have never had pear pudding...I must try it. Kathy

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  7. My favorite fruit for this just came to mind. Grandmother's specialty was gooseberries picked green and preserved. Wonderful summer taste in winter when the wind was howling.

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  8. In this part of the country, it was more likely to be made with cherries or plums.

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  9. Anneliese, Harv's mom made this with her canned pears - although she just cubed the pears. She called it Baeren (Pear) Mousse. We all loved it.

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  10. can you please let me know how to print one of the recipes without all the sidebars etc...some sites have a printer friendly button, maybe I am misiing something...
    thanks...love the recipes...
    marianne

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  11. Marianne,
    What I've done is: open a word document page to paste the recipe onto, then open the recipe I want to copy. I place my arrow right beside the word "Ingredients", left click and hold it while drawing it just over the recipe ... this way you can copy and paste just the recipe. If there are photos in-between, I stop before the photo, copy and paste and start again after the photo.
    It seems like lately the copied recipe on the Wrod document comes up in a very tiny print, but you can easily go into format and change the font size.
    I'm sorry it's a bit tedious, but we had trouble with the print button and not found one that fits this blog. It may come yet. I hope this makes sense,not having all the right computer lingo.

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  12. Thanks for the info Anneliese, I will give that a try!
    Marianne

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