Sunday, July 24, 2011

Upside Down Pear And Ginger Cake













I love finding bargains. I try to be good though and only buy things on sale when they are things I will use. I don't always succeed. But when it comes to food products I can't really go wrong; it's easy to justify a food purchase because eating is essential right? So yeah any purchase is bound to be put to good use. Or so I tell myself. My latest purchase had me a bit worried though: a big sack of nashi pears...for only $1.

Now as much as I like fruit (and nashi pears) I'm actually really slack at eating them, they tend to sit in the fruit bowl until they are almost on death's door, and even then I only eat them 'coz I hate to waste things. The only way I seem to truly get motivated to eat them is when they are a part of something else, like a cake or bircher muesli, or with other fruity friends in a fruit salad. But fruit on its own, is not so appealing. If only I'd been in the Garden of Eden instead of Eve, things might have been different.

Anyway enough rambling! This is a super easy recipe and so adaptable. I know commonly upside down puddings are made with pineapples and cherries, but I find that too sweet so I thought my nashi pears would be a better substitute, and I happened to have the ginger lying around (love the stuff) and I put in my favourite spices. So feel free to use whatever fruits and spices you prefer. The addition of the crystallised ginger worked really well as the sugary goodness of them got all sticky sweet and gooey. Yum!

Base recipe adapted from the good old Edmond's Cookbook.

Ingredients:

125g butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons milk
25g butter, melted
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 - 3 nashi pears, sliced however you please
a small handful of crystallised ginger (approx 50g), slice them in half if you like

Method: 

Cream the first measures of butter and sugar.
Add the eggs one at at time, beat well after each addition.
Fold in the flour and baking powder.
Stir in the milk.
Now onto the 'topping'...
Combine the melted butter, brown sugar and spices.
Spread this mixture onto the bottom of a 20cm round cake tin.
Arrange the pears on top.
Dot the ginger pieces into the gaps.
Spoon the cake mixture on top.
Bake at 180 Celsius for 30-40 minutes.
Flip over onto a plate to unmould.

2 comments:

  1. Oooooooh I've never baked with nashi pears before! What's the texture like once they're cooked? This looks sooooo yummy...I'm a total sucker for anything with ginger!!!

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  2. Hi Nessie! They retain their texture really well, so they lend themselves well to baking. I popped some in some vanilla and cinnamon cupcakes last night and they were fantastic. I just chopped them small-ish for that. For the upside down cake I sliced them no more than 1.5 thick though. They were soft but not mushy, but still retained their shape. Perfect! I think I now prefer them to standard pears, I think they have a more interesting flavour.

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