Another pear cake creation with more pears from my good neighbour. Thankful to my neighbour, I decided to bake a cake with three pears and one, I will garnish the pear cake also with chocolate sprinkles. Got to be creative and daring to experiment with different ingredients.

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.”

Since my last pear cake: Pear cake with pear and fig were successful. The recipe is attached at the bottom. I am glad my experiment with different ingredients turned out really moist with crunchy texture from the fresh pears that I use for garnish. The pears from my neighbour arrived right on time, safe me the trouble of going to supermarket to get them. My friends enjoyed it and said it were really moist and glad that it’s not too sweet. Let’s bake!!!!

Ingredients

250 g butter
180 g castor sugar
3 pears, removed stems, cored, and sliced
4 eggs
420 g self raising flour
300 g sour cream
100 ml thickened cream
60 ml orange juice
1 1/2 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp bicarb soda
1 Tsp vanilla essence
1/2 Tsp salt

Garnish

1 pear, removed stem, cored, sliced
1 strip of orange peel, thinly cut it (OPT)
apricot jam
chocolate sprinkles
nutmeg powder (OPT)

Method

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C.  Grease and line 23 cm spring form pan and set aside. Cut 3 pears into slices. Scatter some nutmeg powder; not too much at the bottom of prepared pan. Then place 1 pear slices on top of nutmeg powder in the prepared pan. The remaining 2 pears slices brush with white wine vinegar to prevent from turning brown, and set aside. Place flour, 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 sour cream and vanilla for about 1 minute. Then thickened cream, and orange juice; beat for about 2 minutes further. If batter consistency is watery add more flour about 20-40 g more.

Spoon some batter into the prepared pan on top of 1 sliced pear that you have place it at the bottom of pan base. Then smooth the batter and place the 2^nd sliced pear around the batter, gently push it in. Then some more batter and smooth the top, and the last sliced pear around the batter gently push 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 cake base. Spread with apricot jam, scatter some orange peel, and garnish with sliced pear in the centre and scatter chocolate on top of the cake. Serve with coffee, tea, dessert wine or with ice cream. Enjoy!!!!

Note: Oven temperature may vary. You might need more time or less.  You may use normal Packham pears instead of these brown Bosc. You can just slice 2 pears and layer them alternate with batter. You can puree 2 pears with a bite of water about 1/8 c like my Pear cake with pear and fig. 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/2023/04/02/pear-cake-with-pear-and-chocolate-sprinkles/

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