Spiced honey and pear cake.

I believe it is a certain blipper's birthday today.

She's a legend around here and we all love her to bits. So I thought I'd bake her a cake.

If she's quick enough... there might be a bit left for her.




Smell Diary

Mmmmmm... cake.... cinnamon, ginger, honey, pear.... warm, comforting smells.

I attempted to smell the cows today. Didn't work. Just got cold air again. Although, maybe this is an advantage. Thankfully no one was around to look at me as if I was mad, except for the cows and they're used to me doing odd things.



Recipe

This was adapted from a Delia Smith recipe, which had some different spices and oranges and lemon. I changed it to fit with the ingredients I had available but reckon I'll stick to this from now on as it was fantastic and we all enjoyed it so much we scoffed the whole cake in one evening. We suggest you don't try that at home. We do suggest that whilst it is wonderful cold, that you try it warm with some vanilla ice cream... that's what we're going to do next time.

4 small or 3 large pears
3oz (75g) clear, runny honey
8 oz (225g) plain flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 oz (75g) golden caster sugar
4oz (110g) butter, at room temp.
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Pre heat oven to gas mark 3/325°F/170°C
You will need a 20cm cake tine, lightly buttered.

Peal and chop the pears into chunks approx 2cm cubed. Place in a small pan with a little water and a small chunk of butter. Simmer gently until pears are tender. If your pears are very ripe this wont take long. The ones I used were quite hard so it took about 15mins. You need just enough water for them to cook in, make sure it doesn't burn dry.

Sift the flour and spices into a large bowl. Add the sugar. Add the butter in small pieces and rub lightly into flour with your fingertips until the mixture becomes crumbly.

Add the honey to the pears and melt until very, very runny. It doesn't take long.

Lightly mix in the beaten egg with a large fork. The pour in the honey, reserving the pears. Mix the bicarbonate of soda with 3 tablespoons of water in a small bowl until dissolved then add to the cake mixture and beat quite hard until the mixture is smooth and soft. Stir in the pears and spoon into the cake tin.

Bake the cake in the centre of the oven for about 50 mins or until well risen and springy to the touch. Cool in the tin for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cold.

Or cut into 4 and serve to drooling family with large dollop of ice cream... or maybe even custard.