upside down pear and ginger cake

upside down pear and ginger cake

• 3 Oct 2011

• Sydney NSW, Australia

It might be spring in Sydney but autumn fruits are still in the fruit shops. I bought some corella pears a few weeks ago and I've been waiting for them to ripen. I've been making this upside down pear, ginger and hazelnut cake from Gourmet Traveller magazine for about 10 years now. The original recipe makes a 23 cm cake but I knew I hadn't bought enough of the tiny pears for a tin of that size.



I also wanted to use a loaf pan that's been in my pot drawer for a year now. It was one of the vintage tins I purchased from etsy some time back. I had enough mixture left over to make 2 texas muffin size mini cakes. So into the oven they went and into the shower I went. The brown sugar and butter layer bubbled over and someone hadn't placed a tin under the cake pan, so it hit the base of the oven and started to burn, creating a pall of smoke in my flat.



Off went the smoke alarm and before I had time to get out of the shower, change and deal with the smoke alarm, my next door neighbour had switched the alarm off in the hallway then knocked on my front door to check I was okay.



I thought it was so sweet of him that I took the 2 mini cakes over to his flat as a thank-you.



I tinkered with the recipe a bit (now there's a surprise, not) by adding an extra teaspoon of ground ginger; using crystallised ginger instead of the more mild glace ginger specified in the recipe and some extra buttermilk. From past experience this is one of those cakes that must be allowed to cool completely before turning out, otherwise it will break into pieces.

Here's the recipe for you -

Pear and Ginger Cake (from Gourmet Traveller)

Topping

60g melted butter

80g (⅓ cup) firmly packed brown sugar

3 beurre bosc pears, peeled cored and thinly sliced

Cake

125 g softened butter, chopped

170 g brown sugar (¾ cup lightly packed)

2 eggs

50 g chopped glace ginger

75 g (⅔ cup) hazelnut meal

310 g (2¼ cups) plain flour

1 tbs ground ginger

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp coriander

½ cup buttermilk

½ cup milk

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda dissolved in 1 tbs boiling water

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Grease and line the base of a 23 cm/9 inch tin with greaseproof paper. Pour in the melted butter, sprinkle with the brown sugar and layer with the thinly sliced pears.

Cream the extra butter and brown sugar until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time. Fold in the chopped ginger and the ground hazelnuts. Sift the flour with the baking powder and spices, fold into the cake mixture alternately with the milk and buttermilk. Finally stir in the bicarbonate of soda.

Spoon the mixture over the pear slices. Bake at 180°C/350°F for 50-60 minutes or until golden and cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool completely before turning out.

I took the cake into work the following day and and there was about 1/4 of the cake left by the end of the day. The following day I was told the ginger flavour had intensified further which I think is a good thing. I've not tried the cake yet as I'm in Brisbane at the moment, visiting the family. My slice of cake is still at home in the freezer.

Thanks for the nice emails and facebook comments on Tiff and Gareth's wedding photos.

I hope you all had great weekends. See you all again on Wednesday,

Jillian