My neighbour gave me some more pears. I gave my neighbour some figs in exchanged. As there are about 20 pears, I gave some to my sister. With the remaining I decided to bake a cake with four pear and the others just eat on its own.

Google: “Bosc pears are characterised by their hard flesh and brown skin. Early in their ripeness cycle they tend to be juicy, crunchy and sweet. When fully ripe the fruit becomes sweeter and softer, and the skin becomes wrinkly. The bronze-coloured Bosc pear has an elongated neck and sweet, juicy flavour with hints of fall spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.”

“These pears have a more firm, dense flesh than other pear varieties, so they are ideal for use in baking, broiling or poaching. They retain their shape and texture better than other varieties, and their flavour is less likely to be overwhelmed by the use of strong spices like cinnamon, clove or nutmeg.”

I am glad to experiment baking a cake with these pears. The pear does give the cake some crunch texture and juicy. Well, overall, everyone of my family said it’s were moist, a bit crunch, and delicious. Let’s bake!!!

Ingredients

250 g butter
200 g castor sugar
4 pears, removed stems and cored; 2 puree and 2 sliced
4 eggs
380-420 g self raising flour
300 g sour cream
1 1/2 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp bicarb soda
1 Tsp vanilla essence
1/2 Tsp salt
1/8 c water

Garnish

1 pear, core, remove stem
1 small fig, sliced
apricot jam
1 strip of orange peel, thinly cut it (OPT)

Method

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C.  Grease and line 23 cm spring form pan and set aside. Cut 2 pears into slices, and place 1 sliced pear at the bottom of the prepared pan. Next puree the remaining 2 pear with water using Nutri Bullet, set aside. Place 380 g flour first, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a deep plate and mix well.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg one at a time, beating well each addition, if necessary, adding a spoonful of flour with the last egg to avoid mixture from curdling. Beat in pear pureed and vanilla for about 1 minute. Then sour cream, beat for about 2 minutes further. If batter consistency is watery add more flour about 40 g more.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan on top of one sliced pear that you have place it at the bottom of pan base. Then smooth the top and place the remaining sliced pear around the batter, gently push it in. Gives a couples of gentle knocks on the bench top. Bake for about 50-60 minutes or until skewer inserted in comes out clean.

After 30 minutes, if cake browned too fast, cover with a lightly greased foil and continue to bake. Once done leave the cake in the oven, switch off oven, close the oven door. Then remove from oven to rack to cool for 20 minutes before flipping over to a plate.

Spread with apricot jam, scatter some orange peel, and garnish with sliced pear and fig in the centre of the cake. Serve with coffee, tea, dessert wine or with ice cream. Enjoy!!!!

Note: You may use normal Packham pears instead of these brown Bosc. You can just slice all 4 pears and layer them alternate with batter instead of puree and sliced. You can add berries if you want to or figs if you have them. Or you can add apple. The consistency of batter should be smooth drop from spoon not liquid running.

https://helenscchin.com/2023/03/27/pear-cake-with-pear-and-fig/

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