Spiced Pear Cake

I’m liking pears at the moment. I don’t know why, but pears have a groove that I’m in tune with. My inner break dancer is spinning on its head to the beat of the pear. And also I’m making up terrible, terrible metaphors. Somebody please stop me. Anyway, I had some pear cider the other day. It’s good – you should have some. Mac’s Issac Pear Cider. I think. Unless of course, you go to the supermarket and such a product does not exist, then I certainly didn’t give you that name at all and stop imagining things, okay? So I figured, lets continue with the pear theme. It worked last time, with the alcohol. Except that it gave you a headache, but that’s mostly because you’re a light weight. Oh my god. Enough rambling!

I made a spiced pear cake with homemade caramel sauce. There, I said it. You actually know what this post is about, rather than some vague ramblings about pears and headaches. Why did I make this? Why yes, I had a specific purpose and wasn’t just feeling the urge to trash the kitchen. The parental units and I were going to my godparents for dinner, as their son has recently returned from Korea. I was volunteered to make dessert. Which is fine, you may have guessed that I like doing such things.

I would like to make a disclaimer, so that certain friends and fellow bakers don’t kill me, use freshly ground cardamom and nutmeg if you can. Don’t be lazy like I was.

Spiced Pear Cake

Pear Sauce

4 medium pears, peeled and diced
¼ c sugar
1/8 c water
Juice of half a lemon

Cake

125 g butter
½ c white sugar
½ c brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
½ c sour cream
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cardamom
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp ginger
½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ½ c flour

Method

1. Attack the pears. Or alternatively, peel and dice them.



2. Biff them in a pot with the lemon juice, sugar and water. Give them a quick stir and then pop the lid of the pot on and cook them down on a medium heat for about twenty minutes, or until they are soft to touch.





3.Take them off the heat and cool. While that’s happening, make the cake mix!

4. It starts out pretty typically; cream the butter and the two sugars together until they are light and fluffy. My mixer never does this particularly well as the bell whisk doesn’t reach don far enough into the bowl.



5. Add the vanilla and crack in the eggs one at a time. Once things are all combined, set a timer for four minutes and let them beat on a medium speed. They’ll end up all.... fluffy like. Sort of. You’ll definitely notice a difference in texture.



6. Mix in the sour cream, which will make the butter, sugar and egg mix a bit smoother and runnier, which is useful ‘cos next comes the dry stuff.



7. I kinda gave this step away; add the dry stuff in (spices, leavening agents, flour) and mix until just combined.





8. Now return to your somewhat cooled pear ... stuff and blend the hell out of it! It should end up like a thick saucy like thing.



9. Dump the pear stuff into the cake mixture and mix it through briefly. No over mixing!



10. Into a pan – I used a bundt pan – and into the oven on 160 degrees Celsius. It’s ready when you stab with a skewer and it comes out clean. The cake is dense-ish though, because of the fruit in there, so it will have a moist crumb.



Caramel Sauce

1 c brown sugar
½ c butter
¼ c evaporated milk

Method

1. Dump it all into a small saucepan!



2. Slowly heat it up to a rolling boil, and once it is there, let it boil for two minutes. You have to stay stirring the whole time, otherwise it’ll stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. And nobody ever wants to smell burnt sugar. Ew.



3. Tada! Done. Pour it into a jug and then over the cake. You can make this quite a while in advance and just warm it up in the microwave for 20 seconds before serving – it needs to be warm so that it pours easily.

Chai Spiced Tea Cake with Honey and Ginger Cream Cheese Icing

Chai spiced cakes seem to be everywhere these days, and so after seeing picture after picture after picture, I decided that I needed to tackle this unusually flavoured cake. When my mother told me we were having family friends to dinner, I had the perfect excuse, because what is better than going somewhere for dinner? Going somewhere for dinner and dessert.

I'd heard a few horror stories about how easy this type of cake was to over beat, or the cake not rising at all, so I was a little nervous about making this. After all, I intended to serve it to people. I didn't need to worry though; things came together wonderfully, even with my additions and tweaking. And here is the part where I follow the majority of people who have tried these cakes and tell you how amazing it was. Goodness, it was divine. It was delicately spiced with a light, slightly dense sponge that was so delicious and easy to eat. The honey and ginger icing was the perfect accompaniment; the ginger gave it just a little kick and the honey suited the spices just perfectly (after all, it makes a great sweetener for chai tea).

Unlike most recipes, I didn't want my cake to be a proper cake (large, layered and overwhelmed by icing), because of the way in which I intended to serve it, so I split the mixture into two loaf tins and added walnuts. It ended up something like a tea cake, and was perfect with a hot drink and yogurt (or cream) after dinner.

Chai Spiced Tea Cake

1 1/3 cup milk
6 chai tea bags
4 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 3/4 cup flour
2 cup sugar
5 tsp baking powder
1/2tsp cinnamon
1/2tsp nutmeg
1/2tsp cardamon
1/2tsp salt
225g butter, melted.
3/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts

1. Simmer your milk, and when it is nice and warm, add your teabags and remove from the heat. Let steep for five to ten minutes. When you remove the teabags, be sure to squeeze out all the milk from the bags, so as to get as much of the chai goodness as you can.


Chai milk.

2. In a bowl, combine all your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, spices, salt, walnuts), then add your eggs and warm milk, then mix. When all is combined, quickly mix in your melted butter (don't beat excessively, just enough to combine).



3. Pour your mixture into your chosen tin - loaf, cake, muffin, cupcake etc - and bake at 180 degrees celcius. I chose to split my mixture between two loaf tins, and the cooking time for those was approximately forty minutes, but of course, be sure to check the cake regularly (by using the touch test).


Ready to be baked.


Fresh out of the oven.

Honey Ginger Cream Cheese Icing

1 - 2 cups icing sugar
100g cream cheese
1/3 cup honey (I used manuka, as that is all we had)
3tsp powdered ginger
1 - 3tbs milk
1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts (for decoration).

1. Add your cream cheese, honey, ginger and one tablespoon of milk, and mix these all together.

2. You can now add your icing sugar, slowly until you have a consistency that you are happy with. If you need to, add more of the milk.

3. Ice the cake generously and sprinkle over the walnuts - as you can see from my photos, I didn't bother with perfect icing, and let it drape deliciously all over the place. This is quite a soft icing, so if you want it to do as you say, you'll need to add a lot of icing sugar, which will detract from the honey and ginger flavours.


Decadent icing.

4. Slice and serve with either yogurt or cream.


Begging you to cut into it and eat it all!


Sitting on my christmas present from my grandparents (love sandwich plates - great for everything!).