Pear Cake for someone special!

Pear Cake

May is quickly becoming the Bundt Month for me! But I have to tell you this is quickly becoming my favorite Bundt so far. This is really easy to throw together and your slightly bruised pears for the gorgeous pie or cheese plate that you can’t use them for is perfect for this dish. No one will Evuh know! The spices give it a subtle ginger type of flavor, even though it has no ginger in it, but you must wait until the next day to dive into this cake. It gets more moist and more subtle with those spices. Just puts a smile on everyone’s faces. Truly a rainy day treat!!

I  have never had success with this beautiful bundt pan until my pear cake. Bought this bundt pan at least a decade ago…give or take……?  I don’t know if that has something to do with my excitement about this cake. Normally I do the grease and flour dance to prep the pan, but I was feeling a bit lazy and only did the Pam spray shuffle. Pam IS the secret when making and baking cakes, and bundts and muffins for sure. So, I don’t know if I just over did my Pam shake or cooled the cake differently (which I did turn it upside down so it wouldn’t continue to cook in that hot pan…..which CAN’T be the reason it came out nicely) but that is truly all I did for this cake to come out of its castle cocoon! If I have a tip, that may just be it. Keep the Pam in the house! This batter is super thick.

The Cake:

3 Cups All Purpose Flour

Pear Ingredients

1 Cup Light Brown Sugar
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1½ Teaspoon Baking Soda
½ Teaspoon Salt
½ Teaspoon Ground Cloves
½ Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
2 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
¼ Cup Molasses

2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1 Cup Vegetable Oil

Pear mold

3 Large Eggs
3 Cups Diced Pear

The Glaze:
½ Cup Unsalted Butter, melted
¼ Cup Water or Apple Juice
1 Cup Confectioner Sugar
½ Tablespoon Ground Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350˚. Thoroughly grease a large bundt pan.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and granulated sugar. Mix in brown sugar, breaking up any clumps. Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients and mix in oil, eggs, vanilla extract and molasses. The batter will be quite thick. Fold in the diced pears being careful to not break up the fruit too much.

Cake

Spoon the cake batter into the greased bundt pan and spread the mixture evenly. Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a

tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 20 minutes before inverting on to a plate.

While cake is cooling, prepare glaze. Melt butter and slowly add confectioner sugar and cinnamon. Add apple juice (or water) and mix until combined. Strain the glaze to remove any potential lumps. Slowly pour over the cake while it’s still warm.

We are talking practically a one bowl no beaters or mixers mess of a kind of cake!! I LOVE when that happens. As you can tell, I prefer sprinkles versus a bunch more sugar on my cakes, so the sprinkles work but do feel free to make the glaze. Ice cream would work too…wink wink!

Put on some groovy music, wear your favorite apron, dance, bake, be happy! And if your neighbors can’t hear you, for goodness sake sing! And a special thanks to my tulip tree for the most extraordinary spring flowers! They don’t even look real!

Bon Appétit!