Pear and almond cinnamon cake

Nothing is more satisfying than freshly baked goods coming straight out of the oven. I love how the smells can permeate throughout every nook and cranny of the house and I love the warmth it seems to provide. This is the therapy I seek when I’ve had a stressful day at work. To be able to throw that all away and be placed into a trance as I mix and fold and knowing that I will have something delicious at the end of it.

However, it was only recently that I took a bit of a break from baking due to this event; I am quite sick of cupcakes now. So when I returned to baking, all I wanted was to make something easy and simple. I picked up a random recipe card from the grocery store and it was for a rhubarb and hazelnut cake. I couldn’t find any rhubarb so I substituted them for pears as I had lying them around, hazelnuts were also substituted for almonds as they needed to be used up as well. So I had pears and almonds for this cake… I decided the addition of cinnamon would go well with these two things. Another addition I made to the cake was by adding brown sugar on the top to get some caramelisation on the cake – I think next time I’ll add more sugar and combine it with some honey.

I found the cake to be a tad bit on the dry side but it was still good nonetheless. It was served with store-bought custard *gasp* I know… But hey! I was lazy… I found it did help with the dryness though.

Recipe

Adapted from here

Makes one 22cm (9 inch) cake

125g butter, softened

1 cup caster sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

2 eggs

2 cups self-raising flour

1/2 cup milk

Brown sugar

100g roasted almonds, roughly chopped

2 pears, cut roughly into 2cm cubes

1. Preheat oven to 160C (320F). Grease and line a round cake tin with baking paper.
2. Beat butter, caster sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
4. Gently fold in flour, milk and half the almonds.
5. Pour mixture into prepared pan.
6. Scatter clumps of brown sugar over the entire surface of the cake batter and sprinkle with remaining almonds.
7. Push chunks of pears throughout the batter and gently press all the topping into the batter.
8. Bake for 1 hour or until cake is cooked when tested with a skewer.
9. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before allowing it to cool on a wire rack.
10. Serve warm or at room temperature with custard.

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