Almond Pears

So, tonight I made almond pears.  I found them in  Swedish cookbook that my mother bought and that I knew she wasn't using.  The picture looked delicious, and, trying to get in touch with my Swedish roots, I took up the challenge of making them.  At first this was something I just wanted to do for a fun dessert, but it turned out to be fairly difficult, so I think this was my stretch dish. I really had less trouble with the pie.  The end result turned out to be edible, and tasty, but I will be the first to say that it was not great.  

I made the thing from scratch.  First, I started with the almonds, which i had to smash up myself because I couldn't find ground almonds in the store.  I also had to whip the cream by hand and was very grateful that I found a whisk in the kitchen and that Dak was there to help me when I got tired of whisking.  That was my biggest mistake, because, in trying to halve the recipe, I forgot that I would need only one cup of cream, not two.  So my pears were smothered in whipped cream, but people ate them anyways. Thanks, guys!  The one plus to my dish was that the pears, which is rescued from the commons on pear day, were perfectly ripe and delicious.  So, that was my experience with Swedish desserts.  I'm going to wait until I get home and have a real kitchen before I try any of those again.