I feel I need to apologize to my readers. I have been mia and given no reasoning or warning.
To be honest this past week, I couldn’t really get myself to blog. I had things to blog about but in the end it never happened. I just had one of those weeks, ya know?
But have no fear this will not become a usual occurance. I’m getting back on track. Can we be friends again?
My friend Amanda visited this past weekend and it was a total blast but I need more time to work on that post. Lots of shenanigans and pictures need to be worked on before I can recap. So stay tuned for that!
So instead I will harp on about fall yet again. Are you tired of it yet?
So everyone in the blog world is gaga for pumpkin. It’s the talk of the town basically and while I love pumpkin (get ready to have more pumpkin filled recipes thrown your way) like my fellow bloggers I think there are some other fall flavors that have been thrown to the way side that really need to be brought to the forefront. One of them being pears.
I love me a good pear. They are soft, and juicy and sweet. I may actually like them more than apples. I recently bought a surplus of pears to bring to work as a mid-morning snack. The problem being they all rippened at the same time and since I wasn’t going to throw back 5 pears in one day at work I knew I was going to have to bake with them.
I’ve never baked with pears before so I was a little unsure about what to make. While a good crisp is always welcome I knew I wanted to step out of that comfort zone and do something a little different. I remembered seeing a pear cake recipe on Jenna’s blog once upon a time and I couldn’t resist. Sometimes you just need a piece of cake.
Let me first off say that a lot of areas of baking make me nervous i.e. anything the requires yeast, gelatin, and or making caramel. These things scare me because in my eyes this means complicated or time consuming when in reality I know it’s a matter of getting comfortable with these ingredients. But what was the first step in this recipe? Browning butter and making a caramel of course. I figured there was no time like the present to tackle my fear of hot melted sugar, how hard could it be?
The caramel didn’t get creamy or silky, it was blotches of brown sugar floating in butter but I forged ahead, I had to use the pears regardless. So I poured the “caramel” into the pan and lined it with sliced pears and prepared the cake batter.
I really wasn’t sure how the whole thing would turn out. I knew that in the end this cake would need to flip out of the pan and I was really hoping the pears and caramel would come with it. But I followed Jenna’s clear instructions to wait for the cake to cool for 5 minutes and then say a prayer and then flip that cake out.
I held my breath and expected the worst and then…it was perfect. The cake slid out with pears in tact and caramel gleaming. I was surprised to say the least but so very happy.
The cake was light and moist and sweet from the pears and sugar, just a hint of ginger and the best part was an unexpected salty bite. The explanation for this sweet and salty deliciousness had to be salted butter. If you make this cake you must use salted butter! Amazing.
Ginger Pear Upside Down Cake:
~Adapted from Eat Live Run, Orginally from The Wednesday Chef
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 sticks salted butter
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoons vanilla
juice of 1/2 lemon
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
4-5 medium Bartlet pears
In a skillet melt 4 tablespoons of butter over medium high heat. You can either just melt it or go the extra mile and brown the butter. Then add the brown sugar and wisk until it gets creamy. *mine never got to this point however if the sugar looks semi dissolved and is seperating from the butter that is fine-don’t panic!
Pour or in my case scrape the caramel into a greased 9 inch cake pan. Artful lay the pear slices in a fan shape on top of the caramel. Set aside.
In a bowl mix the flour, baking powder, and ginger. And set aside.
In another bowl mix a stick of butter with the sugar, vanilla and 2 eggs. Slowly add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture, alternating dry ingredients and milk until combined. Pour the batter on top of the pears.
Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes. Once done let cool for 3-5 minutes. Say a littler prayer. Then place a plate on top of the cake pan and flip over onto the plate.
Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche or good vanilla ice cream.
Grab yourself some pears and make this. It goes really well with a cup of coffee and maybe even better with a glass of white wine.
