How to make Julia Turshen's Pear, Polenta + Almond Cake

A fall recipe with a time-saving twist

I feel as though this is Make a Home Cook Happy week here at xoxoDorie. It’s what I try to do all the time, but the past few days I’ve gotten great help in this department from friends who care about all of us who make food at home. Mary Dodd chimed in with takeaways for home cooks from her work as a recipe tester. And I wrote about two of my favorite home cooks, Julia Child and Julia Turshen, both of whom advise us not to apologize when things don’t go right with dinner. I’m still working on that one.

Actually, maybe it’s Julia Turshen week, because last night she helped me kick off my mostly virtual book tour for Baking with Dorie and we talked about home cooking, of course. And today I’ve got a homey recipe for you from her last book, Simply Julia.

Julia’s Pear, Polenta + Almond Cake is a case study in how a cookbook author cheerleads bakers through a recipe, stopping here and there to give us choices and always making things as easy as she can for us. Oh, it’s also a swell cake.

As y…