This soft, moist, dense almondy cake can be served warm for pudding, with lashings of cream, or cold, with a cup of tea or coffee. Firm conference pears should work a treat here.
Serves
Six people
Ingredients
- 350g unsalted butter, softened
- 250g caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp
- 4 eggs
- 150g whole blanched almonds or ground almonds
- 150g self-raising flour
- 5-6 pears, firm but not too hard, peeled, cored and quartered
- Cake tin about 20cm in diameter and 5cm deep (a springform one is best)
- Baking parchment
Method
Preheat the oven to 160°C. Your esse dial wants to read hot but not the far side of hot. Grease a 20cm diameter, springform cake tin with a little of the butter and line the base with baking parchment.
Put a saucepan over a medium heat and add 25g of the butter. When it’s sizzling, add 1 tbsp sugar and stir until it dissolves. Add the pear quarters and fry in the buttery caramel for a couple of minutes, until they start to brown. Put the pan to one side to cool a little.
Put the remaining butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and cream together until light and fluffy. Beat in the two eggs, one at a time.
Whiz the whole blanched almonds in the food processor for about a minute to grind them. Tip them into the cake batter (or add the ready-ground almonds), then sift in the self-raising flour and fold in gently. Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin. Arrange the pieces of pear on top of the cake. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until a knife pushed into the centre comes out clean.
Place the tin on a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or cold.
