The Season Of Sugar, Spice And All Things Nice! Pear And Ginger Cake

So much for vowing to post more in November. But then, I do have an excuse: I was travelling! To the Middle East and back. I spent time with my family, shopped for all kinds of stuff for my kitchen, and, of course, fed myself happily. I attended my cousin’s wedding after that, and had family come and visit me in Mumbai as well.

I cannot believe the year went by so fast. (How painfully clichéd is that?) But indeed, it has. The festive season, for me, began with Diwali, and it’s all one big happy season till the new year. The Diwali lights have blurred into Christmas lights; and my neighbours are hanging stars on their windows and balconies. And since Christmas is coming around, it’s time to break out the cookie cutters, cake tins and muffin moulds and bake with sugar, spice and all things nice!

I love a the combination of ginger and cinnamon with fruit- especially apples and pears.  I made this cake a while back, when pears were aplenty, but never got around to posting because:

1. The pictures are rather blah.
2. I was being a lazy lardy vacationing lump.
3. I was compensating for above lazy lardiness by attempting regular gym schedules; which made me tired; which gave me an excuse to begin a post and abandon it.
4. You can guess by now what my New Year’s resolutions are going to be.

I thought this would fit into my theme this month of cooking with sugar and spice, so here it is. I first came across the recipe on Purple Foodie, and chanced upon many more recipes for upside down pear cakes. But since I wanted my pears neither upside down nor up top but nestled in the middle, I borrowed from two sources, married two methods and came out with a decent enough slice of cake.

GINGER CAKE WITH PEAR (Adapted from Purple Foodie and BBC Good Food.)

INGREDIENTS

• 200 grams butter
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup castor sugar
• 1/2 cup Demerara sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
• 1/2 cup pears, peeled, cored, diced/grated
• 3 eggs
• A little extra castor sugar and butter for sprinkling and dabbing on top

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 180C
• Grease a cake tin (I used one that is 9 inches round) and set aside.
• In a bowl, whisk  the flour, baking powder, ground ginger and diced or grated pears
• In a saucepan, melt the butter. Once it is melted, pull off heat and allow to cool.
• In another bowl, beat both the sugars with the eggs, adding the eggs in one at a time.
• To the egg-sugar mixture, fold in the dry ingredients followed by the melted butter and combine well.
• Spoon this mixture into the prepared cake tin and sprinkle some more castor sugar on top. Dot some softened butter as well.
• Bake for 35-40 minutes at 180C or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

This cake does not look very phancy; in fact it is quite the humble plain Jane…however, it is nice for tea time. The fact that it isn’t clawingly sweet and that hit of ginger makes it a nice accompaniment to a cup of tea. Or coffee. Or apple cider. I’m not sure how great it’d be with a cup of cocoa though…hmmm.

I will post pictures of my travels soonly. And this time when I say I want to post more this month, I do mean it.