The Best Pear Cake

Full credit for this goes to Jessica Holmes from the Sweetest Menu for this cake. It is divine and quite simple. Basic ingredients and fresh pears. I used stem ginger as I have a strong hatred of cinnamon, which the original recipe calls for.

If you can, use scales to weigh everything and the eggs do need to be at room temperature

Ingredients

115 grams (1/2 cup or 1 stick) butter, room temperature

150 grams (3/4 cup) caster sugar ( I used a mix of raw caster and brown sugar and only 1/2 cup in total)

2 large eggs, room temperature (pop them in some warm water for 10 mins if you need to)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

120 ml (1/2 cup) full fat or whole milk

175 grams (1 and 1/4 cups) plain flour

75 grams (3/4 cup) almond meal or ground almonds

2 teaspoons baking powder

Pinch each salt and ground ginger

250 grams (1 and 1/2 cups or 2 medium-sized) pears peeled and chopped into bite size/ 2cm cubes

Ginger Sugar Topping

15 grams (1 tablespoon) butter, melted

15 grams (1 tablespoon) caster sugar

15 grams (1 tablespoon) stem ginger liquid

1 small knob of finely cut stem ginger

Instructions

Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F) standard / 160 C (320 F) fan-forced. Grease and line an 8-inch round cake pan with baking or parchment paper on the bottom and the sides of the pan.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until pale and creamy, approximately 1-2 minutes.

Add eggs and vanilla and beat briefly to combine.

Add flour, almond meal, baking powder and salt, along with the milk. Gently mix together on a low speed, just until cake batter is smooth and creamy.

In a separate bowl, toss chopped pears in ginger. Add pears to cake batter and gently stir. Transfer batter to prepared pan and smooth the top using a spatula.

In a separate small bowl, combine melted butter, sugar and ginger. Drizzle over the top of the cake batter. Use a butter knife to gently swirl mixture into the cake batter.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Leave cake to cool for 10 minutes before carefully transferring to a wire rack. This cake is good warm or cold.