Baking With an Idea: Pear & Raspberry Cake

Every fall I make a series of simple pear cakes–because I love pears–especially Bartletts (called Williams in Europe, like the eau de vie) and their season is short and carpe diem, etc. Pears must be used at their point of perfect ripeness; they ripen from the inside out, so if you wait too long, the core might be brown and mushy, and the flavor less intense. It’s a challenge to use or eat them at their perfect point (often only two days, which is why they are sold unripe) when the flesh still provides resistance, but they are at their peak flavor. One way to tell is to smell them–yes, the scent should be intoxicatingly pearish. Another way to tell is by the color–uniformly yellow, no brown spots.

Anyway, a few days ago I wanted to bake a pear cake, but only two of my four Bartlett pears were ready. Two would make too small a cake for what I had in mind, so I thought I would add raspberries. Eureka! The cake was the best version of itself. The raspberries provided brightness and acidity while the chopped pears blended into the batter, adding flavor and moistness.

In the next few days, I bought more pears and made the cake two more times, realizing that this is a flexible recipe, one that not only accommodates the number of pears you might have, but also the absence of a scale, more or less sugar, less butter, an extra egg, gluten-free flour. You can make it by feel and it’ll still be delicious. It might be a bit moister or drier or or, but you’ll still want to eat it.

I cook, and I also bake bread by feel–last weekend I showed a friend how to make challah, and we started by looking at the amount of egg yolks I had frozen (yes, yolks can be frozen–just stir in a bit of sugar–thank you, Rose Levy Beranbaum). Yes, sometimes my results are not picture perfect, but I don’t mind the variance–I learn something each time, and gain confidence, and experience the pleasure of serendipity.

So, this recipe idea makes a two-inch high, 9-inch wide cake. I used a 9″ springform pan, lined the bottom with parchment and sprayed it and the sides with Baker’s Joy. You can make it larger by scaling up the ingredients and baking it in a bundt pan. The insurance for success is beating the egg whites separately–this gives the cake two ways to rise, the chemical and the air-driven.

11 Tbs. butter (if you use unsalted, you’ll want to add 1/2 tsp salt later) room temperature (you can use less!–even half a stick)

3/4 cup sugar, divided (if you like your desserts less sweet, try 2/3)

2 Bartlett pears, peeled, cored, and somewhat finely chopped–currant or raisin sized pieces. I dusted the pieces with a bit of Trulemon to keep them white while I prepared the batter. I used between 7 and 10 ounces of peeled, chopped pear, and the cake was fine (albeit slightly different) each time.

1 cup, 4.5 ounces almond flour

1 cup, 4.5 ounces all purpose flour (gluten-free is fine, too–but add 1/4 tsp. of xanthan gum if your mix does not contain it)

1 tsp. baking powder

3 eggs, separated (I used four eggs the last time)

2 Tbs. whole milk yoghurt (or sour cream, or milk if you don’t have the other), only if necessary

1/2 tsp. cream of tartar (OK to leave this out–it stabilizes the egg whites with acid)

1 tsp. vanilla, dash of almond extract (you could try other flavorings, maybe use ground hazelnuts instead of almonds and use hazelnut extract?)

1/2 cup raspberries, about 3 ounces (once, when I didn’t have raspberries, I used cranberries that had been cut in half and sugared overnight)

Powdered sugar, for decoration

Preheat oven to 350–I used convect.

Cream the butter with about 2/3 of the sugar until light. (I did this in a food processor to save my Kitchen Aid mixer for beating the egg whites.) Add the vanilla and almond extract and the egg yolks.

Whisk the almond and AP flour with the baking powder (and salt, if you used unsalted butter). Add to the butter/yolk mixture and blend until smooth. Stir in the chopped pears.

Whip the egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy, then continue beating while adding the last 1/3 of sugar, until stiff but not dry.

If the batter minus the egg whites is too thick (mine was, the first time, although I can imagine cases where it might not be, say if the pears are very large), you’ll need the yoghurt. So if your batter looks recalcitrant, as though you have to beat it hard to make it behave, stir in 2 Tbs yoghurt to loosen it. Then fold in the beaten egg whites in stages until you have an integrated batter. Stir in a few raspberries.

Pour or spoon the batter into the prepared pan and dot the batter with the rest of the raspberries–they will sink below the surface during baking. You want each piece of cake to have at least one raspberry in it, but don’t be tempted to add more; the cake will be too wet, and the raspberries will overpower the pears.

Bake in the center of the oven for 45-50 minutes, checking at 40, but you might need to bake it for 50–I did. Every oven is different. To check the cake for doneness, insert a tester (I use a straightened-out paper clip) close to the middle of the cake. It should come out more or less clean with a few crumbs attached. Remove the cake from the oven to a rack and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. The cake will shrink from the sides of the pan and maybe fall a tiny bit. Remove the springform sides. You can serve the cake on the springform bottom, or better, once it is completely cool, use a cookie sheet to turn the cake upside-down and remove the bottom and the paper, and then right it on a platter. Use a sieve to dust the top with powdered sugar.

Makes 8 servings. It doesn’t need whipped cream (and I say this as someone who loves whipped cream) and it tastes divine at room temperature, although if you have leftovers, probably best to store them in the refrigerator because the cake is so moist it could mold.