anzac pear crunch cake

anzac pear crunch cake

• 20 Apr 2026

Each year I like to bake something in honour of ANZAC Day but this year ANZAC Day kind of rushed up on me. I needed 2 days to bake what I'd planned and with only 1 day at my disposal I had to pivot. I found this lovely looking Anzac apple crunch cake on the New Zealand Woman's Weekly website and decided to make a pear version.

The cake is made from pantry items, so all I needed to buy were the pears.

I followed the recipe faithfully but came a bit unstuck when I topped the cake with the ANZAC biscuit topping. The cake sank as soon as I took it from the oven, meaning it was underbaked. Next time I'd bake it for a bit longer but I also find cakes made with bicarbonate of soda as the rising agent often sink so I'd ditch the bicarb soda and just use self raising flour instead.

Here's the recipe for you adapted from here, which makes a 17-cm 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. If you'd like to make a larger cake, refer to the linked recipe which makes a 21-cm cake.

Anzac pear crunch cake

Ingredients

115g unsalted room temperature butter

½ cup (125g) caster sugar

¼ cup (50g) brown sugar 
2 tsp finely grated lemon rind
1 egg
1 cup (150g) plain flour

½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp bicarb soda
¼ tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground ginger
pinch sea salt flakes
1 apple or pear, peeled and diced
30mls milk

Topping
25g unsalted butter
40mls/g golden syrup
1 tbs (20mls) milk
⅓ cup (40g) rolled oats
⅓ cup (25g) shredded coconut
pinch sea salt flakes

Method
Preheat the oven to 175°C, conventional. Grease and line the base of a 17-cm round cake tin with baking paper.

Using an electric beater, cream the butter, sugars and lemon rind for 6-8 minutes or until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until incorporated.

Sift over the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, spices and the salt, then fold together with the diced pear or apple and milk. Spoon into the cake tin and smooth the top. 

Bake for 40 minutes at 175°C, conventional. While the cake is in the oven, combine the butter, golden syrup and milk in a small pan and heat until the butter has melted. Place the oats, coconut, salt in a small bowl, pour over the butter mixture, and mix to combine. Take the cake from the oven and quickly spoon the topping over the par-cooked cake and return it to the oven. (The cake sank when I took it out of the oven at the 40 minute mark so I would increase the bake time to 50 minutes).

Bake for a further 15-20 minutes or until the cake is cooked in the centre when tested with a skewer and the topping is golden. Place on a wire rack to cool before unmoulding.

While it may not have been a perfect bake, you just knew that the cake was going to be delicious. Just a note that the cake isn't particularly sweet. If you'd like a sweeter cake, you could increase the sugar to a full cup.

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

Bye for now,

Jillian