Upside-Down Gingerbread Pear Cake
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 11:35AM Nothing says holidays quite like gingerbread.
It fills the house with wonderful smells of warm winter spices and makes you wanna cozy up by the fireplace. Did I mention that it’s day three of my Five Days of Festive Fun? Make sure you see the end of this post and comment for you chance to win a Kitchen Aid Food Processor!
The following recipe is one of my all-time favourite holiday recipes. Great to bring to a potluck to serve for brunch or at the end of a meal.
It is elegant and rich, but has the added bonus of fruit. It’s always a big hit at gatherings, and it’s easy to make to boot. Not to mention, it’s an upside-down cake. I love this style of baking, I think it’s one of the best ways to highlight fruit in a dish, without the labour-intensive business of pie.
I used Forelle Pears in this recipe, which are small and sweet, and the perfect firm texture for this type of cake. You’ll need a 10-inch cast-iron skillet for this recipe
Upside-Down Pear GingerBread Cake
Topping
6-8 forelle pears, peeled and quartered
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup unsalted butter
(You can add a couple of tablespoons of brandy if you like too)
2 ½ cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp salt
1 egg
½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup brown sugar
1 cup of molasses
1 cup of boiling water
Melt sugar and butter for topping over low heat in the cast iron skillet. Once sugar is completely dissolved add pears and let simmer slowly until pears soften a little (if adding brandy, add now).
Set aside.
Sift together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
In a large bowl cream together butter and brown sugar with an electric beater. Once well combined, beat in egg until smooth.
In a two cup measuring cup, measure out 1 cup of molasses and top with one cup of boiling water. Stir to combine.
Add 1/3 of flour mixture to egg, butter and sugar mixture, stir. Add 1/3 of molasses and water mixture and combine. Keep adding thirds of each mixture until batter is fully combined.
Remove pears from the cast pan and arrange in pleasing circular fashion.
Top with cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 min. at 350F.
The edges of the cake will be crisp.
Let cool 15 to 20 minutes. Invert onto a large plate.
Adapted from this recipe on epicurious.com
What are your favourite flavours and scents of the season?
So here are the rules for entering the giveaway of a Kitchen Aid Food Processor:
Leave a comment on the blog, or any other blog entry this week during my Five Days of Festive Fun! (That’s all you need to do for your first entry!) One comment per blog post, per person please!
This giveaway is for Canadian readers only, unfortunately, so you must live in Canada.
For extra entries you can:
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Full disclosure: KitchenAid Canada is providing the winner of my giveaway with a food processor. I am not being compensated financially or in any other way through this giveaway. I have not received an appliance myself for review. The opinions expressed on this blog are my own.
Reader Comments (7)
Just what I was waiting for...DESSERT! Must admit, this looks so AMAZING! Can't wait to attempt this one, hope it turns out as pretty as yours!
This looks so delicious.
Monique
These recipes look great and I'm lucky I was actually able to taste them last weekend! Definitely tried and true and looking forward to taking a stab at them myself over the holidays! :)
looks delicious! Another great post :)
I've never tried upside-down cake but this looks delicious.
I absolutely love the smell of cinnamon in the house for the holidays. Looks really good.
i've never made an upside-down anything - but this looks like it's worth a try!