Pear season is in full swing. Whether poached with honey and cinnamon to top porridge, or even sliced in a salad with tangy cheese and bitter leaves, I’m definitely a fan of the fruit – but my favourite thing to do with them is bake of course. They pair (excuse the pun) wonderfully with warming seasonal spice. This pear and ginger upside-down cake combines two types of ginger – stem and ground – in a light sponge, topped with sweet pears and a ginger caramel topping. To make the cake, you will need:
For the topping:
3 small pears, peeled, cored and halved
50g dark brown sugar
40g butter
10 ml ginger syrup (from a jar of stem ginger)
For the sponge:
100g butter
100g caster sugar
100g self-raising flour
2 eggs
1 tsp ground ginger
2 balls of stem ginger, finely chopped.
First, preheat the oven to 160C fan. Make the caramel for the topping: melt the butter and sugar together over a low heat, then add the ginger syrup. Pour into a greased and lined 20cm tin. Arrange the pear halves over the top, cut-side down.
Make the sponge. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the stem and ground ginger to the mixture then fold in the eggs and flour, alternating to avoid the mixture curdling.
Cover the prepared pears with the cake mixture and bake in the oven for around 50 – 60 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. If the cake starts to darken too much, cover with tinfoil. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for ten minutes in the tin before turning out onto a wire rack to cool fully. Watch the hot syrup when you do!
A tasty treat with custard on cold late Autumn evenings. What are you baking this weekend?
Recipe by me! Click here for my other pear recipes.