A few days ago my dad brought the most juicy pears home. They were small and so full of flavour that after downing as many as I could fresh, I decided to make a pear cake I’d been meaning to try ever since I saw the recipe in a cute little Marks and Spencer baking book my cousin gifted to me.
What intrigued me was the addition of ginger to complement the pear. A simple cake batter flavoured with a hint of dried ginger (though next time I’m going to try fresh or a combination of the two) and topped with sliced pears and a generous sprinkling of walnuts. SUPER YUM!
You know what’s the worst part of blogging about this cake? That I cannot eat it as I type, like all the other things I make.
Pear and Ginger Cake with Walnuts
Yield: 1 8/9inch cake that serves 8-10 people
Adapted from Easy Baking, Marks and Spencers
200g / 7 oz butter
200g / 7 oz sugar
200g / 7 oz all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground ginger
3 eggs
450g / 1 lb pears – peeled, cored and sliced
1 tbsp raw sugar or granulated sugar (for sprinkling)
50g / 2 oz walnuts, chopped
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and grease a 8 (preferably) or 9 inch round tin and line it with parchment paper.
- In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and ground ginger.
- In another bowl, beat the sugar and 175g/6oz butter together. Add the eggs, one at a time.
- Reduce the mixer speed and add the flour mixture or fold it in by hand.
- Spoon this mixture into a prepared tin and arrange the pear slices on top of the cake. Sprinkle with the 1 tbsp of sugar, dot with the remaining butter and scatter the walnuts on the pears.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Let it cool slightly before cutting yourself a slice.
{ 49 comments… read them below or add one }
oooh! it smells like fall ;) looks DELISH!!!
This looks lovely and I even have some walnuts I have been trying to get rid of.
Guess now I know what to do with them :)
I love walnuts! You could also toast them and make something similar to these thyme toasted pecans!
Looks so moist..and yes, the pear and walnuts make this perfect for Fall.
Mmm.. looks and sound delicious!
Yur cake has such a lovely crumb. Ginger, especially the tender kind, pairs beautifully with pears. I add it to my crumbles. :)
What a perfect slice of cake! It looks just gorgeous and I bet it was incredibly tasty with those fresh pears.
Mmmm, I love pear and ginger! If you're a fan of crumble, use pears for the bottom and add ginger to the topping (or just crush well some ginger biscuits, rub in butter, and stick that on top) – yummy!
Your photo looks amazing, as always,
Rosie of BooksAndBakes
That photo is wonderful! It's perfect for a teacake. Or even a coffeecake? I adore pears. I would normally be tempted to substitute pecans for walnuts (I think walnuts are bitter) but with the sweet pears, walnuts would be a great balance.
Thanks, all!
Aparna: I like the idea of adding ginger to the crumbles. I'd recently learnt to make crystallised ginger and I'm going to be adding to cakes, cupcakes, crumbles and wherever else I can!
Palidor: Oh yes it was!
booksandbakes: OOOh ginger biscuits in a crumble sound delicious. I have to keep that in mind the next time I make a crumble.
Barbara: Thank you so much Barbara :) I kinda like the astringent taste that comes with walnuts. And for me, pecans are hard to find here. I usually buy them by the bag from the US and save it for more "pecan crucial" recipes. hehe
Nancy sent me this via e-mail – I had to publish it here because of some awesome ideas. Over to Nancy:
"This is the cake my mom would make as a coffee cake for mid morning snack time on Sunday morning's. The only difference is that she said we must use fresh ginger if at all possible, which I do to this day.. And she also drizzled caramel topping across the entire cake. She would dip a large serving spoon into the sauce and what ever the spoon could hold was all that she would drizzle on the cake, I on the other hand was a BAD GIRL !! I would add more than her. Usually 2 spoonfuls,, LOL LOL I know I know …Bad GIRL hehehehehe… But this recipe is a keeper for all eternity. I hope your readers enjoy it !!"
This looks delicious!
i love that plate!
Fantastic looking cake and glad the Daring Bakers challange worked for you. Love your blog too!
This is lovely cake…nice mosit cake with caramelised pears and toasted pecans. Simply yummy.This goes into my recipe book.
Looks delicious. I went apple picking today and came home with a few pears too. I'm trying to figure out what to do with them! This looks like a good idea!
The cake looks awesome Shaheen!
Thank you, all! :)
I LOVE pears in cakes. This looks divine. Bookmarking asap!
oh this looks ah-may-zing! bookmarking!!
Never thought of pairing pears and ginger together – love it!
Yum, that looks really good especially the top with the walnuts all toasted and pears caramel-y looking!
~ingrid
What a wonderful cake! Great way to enjoy pears :)
I just found your blog through Baking Bites – I love your photography and this cake looks amazing!
I love the buttery sweetness of pears, to me they are the perfect fruit. This cake seems like it really showcases all their qualities, I wish I could eat it right now. I will have to make it instead!
Thank you!
That looks absolutely scrumptious! It reminds me of the apple cake my grandmother makes, and I think ginger in that would be divine! Must give it a try…
Lovely cake Shaheen.Could not locate your email ID on the blog. But have a question. Any idea where I can find a Candy thermometer in Mumbai? Will be travelling to Mumbai this weekend.Many Thanks.
Thanks Mowie, I love your blog a lot!
the red deer: Thank you so much! Hope to see you around more often!
Madhuli: Whoops – there is an envelope icon in the about me part to email me. I think I should make it more clear. I'm afraid I don't think you can find a candy thermometer here. I bought mine from the States. :(
Sounds like a great recipe. I can't wait to try it.
Anyone tried making this with stem ginger?
How much do you think you'd need if so?
Shaheen – I adapted this recipe for our dessert last night. My kids who HATE pears ate the whole cake! Being Italian (American) I swapped out a bunch of our ingredients for the ginger, and added rum and raisins. YUM! I have to thank you for inspiring me.
I mentioned your blog on my website where I wrote a page about this YUMMY cake.
http://www.italian-dessert-recipes.com/pear_cake.html
Got it Shaheen and Thanks for the speedy reply
Anon: I'd use use 1 tsp freshly ground ginger for this. You can vary the amount depending upon how spicy you'd like it. Once mixed in, you can take a quick taste of the cake batter before you move forward.
Lisa: Rum and raisin in this sound great! Thanks for trying this out. :)
Madhuli: You're most welcome :)
Perfect! I needed to make a cake for my father tomorrow for his Birthday and this looks like just the type of cake that he would love :)
Hi
I was wondering what type of pears did you use for this recipe and also did you toast the walnuts before sprinkling on the top of the pears.
YAY Lisa I'm so happy to hear that! I hope he loved it. :D
Jackie – Here in Bombay, we are quite limited by the choice of pears so I use the once that are available to me. But the book called for "Dessert pears" so you can try it with that. Also, I didn't toast the walnuts because they'd get toasted while baking since they were sprinkled on top.
they look mind-blowingly delicious…
it lookes wonderful! i´m so glad i found this blog- you make so many good things :-)
Thanks, S.
Bakmammorna: Hope to see you around more often!!
Love this. ginger and pear is such a perfect match! niiiice.
Gorgeous cake – used fresh ginger and no walnuts as I couldn’t find any. Also, put pear into the batter, too. The cake took almost an hour at this temperature – probably because of the extra pear.
Can you freeze this recipe after it cools? Sounds taste.
I haven’t tried it, but I don’t see why not.
Hi is looks delish. I am about to start making it for my grandad who is doing some buliding at my house at the moment. I was just wondering what kind of sugar do you use?? eg. Granulated/caster.. i have always thought caster goes into the mixture better.
thank you
Yes, caster does work better. But I always have granulated sugar around and that’s what I use the most.
Hi Shaheen,
Let me tell you first that your blog has become my fav these days, have tried couple of cakes..and all of them turned grt esp cinnamon with caramel apple……and this one too is superb….just one thing that I want to know, if we want to make the cake more moist what should we add? milk or buttermilk? I like more moist cake so….
Either but i usually prefer yoghurt cakes.
Want to try this, but I need standard measurements please…. cups/ tsp, etc.\Thanks
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