olive oil loaf cake with pear and hazelnuts

olive oil loaf cake with pear and hazelnuts

• 12 May 2025

I borrowed Julia Busuttil Nishimura's recipe book, Good Cooking Every Day from the library and I was reading this recipe on the train when an card inspector came by to check my OPAL card. After he checked the card he commented on how appetizing this cake looked. I've been meaning to make the cake ever since but first I had to wait for pear season.

Autumn seems to have come in a rush. With the changing colours of the leaves, the fruit selection has also changed. Some plums are holding on as are grapes but otherwise its all apples, pears and citrus. I bought a few pears and put them in the fruit bowl waiting for them to ripen.

Here's the recipe for you, adapted from this Julia Busuttil Nishimura recipe, which makes a small loaf cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Olive oil loaf cake with pear and hazelnuts

Ingredients
2 eggs
100g caster sugar
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
70ml light-flavoured extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra to serve
80g ground hazelnuts
80g GF or regular plain flour, sifted with 1 tsp baking powder

good pinch of sea salt

To serve

crème fraîche

Poached pears
100g caster sugar
1 star anise

1 bay leaf
1 vanilla pod, split and seeds scraped
juice of ½ lemon
2 small firm pears, peeled, cored and cut into 2 cm pieces.

Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C, conventional or 170°C fan-forced. Grease, flour and line a small loaf tin with baking paper.

Poached pears

Place the caster sugar, star anise, bay leaf, vanilla pod and seeds, 250 ml (1 cup) of water and the lemon juice in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer over a medium heat, then add the pears and cook for 6-8 minutes or until just tender. Remove the pears with a slotted spoon and set aside. If the syrup lacks viscosity, continue to simmer the syrup until slightly thickened, remembering it will thicken upon cooling. Reserve the syrup for later. 

Method

Whisk together the eggs, caster sugar and lemon zest in a large bowl. Stream in the olive oil and whisk until just incorporated. Whisk in the ground hazelnuts, then finally whisk in the flour, baking powder and salt until just combined. 

Fold in the pears (approximately 150g) and spoon the batter into the tin. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when tested. 

Use a toothpick to poke holes in the hot cake, then pour over 100mls of the cooled syrup. 

Allow the cake to cool in the tin, then turn out and serve with the crème fraîche and a drizzle of olive oil or any left over pear syrup.

I made a gluten free version to share with my neighbours, and it was well received and the dollop of crème fraiche on top elevates the cake to dessert status. This is one very delicious cake.

 
See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian