Pear and Ginger Crumble Cake

This Pear and Ginger Crumble Cake may not be a pin up looks wise but boy does this cake punch above its weight in the flavour stakes.

I have to thank Nigela for the inspiration – I was watching her Italian cookery programme and saw her using amaretti biscuits in a plum crumble. I started thinking about what other biscuits would work for this idea. I am not convinced pears would really hold up to an entire crumble but then wondered about how they’d work in a Chiara cake, which is what this cake is largely based on.

I’ve now made this twice and the second time it took about ten minutes longer to cook. I think that probably had something to do with how juicy the pears were.

I have used a cake tin liner which is like a giant cupcake case on this – you do end up with a crinkled edge to the cake that way but I would recommend using similar if you can as the cake is quite crumbly and might be difficult to move without.

Ingredients

  • 150g bake stable white chocolate chunks,
  • 350g peeled and chopped pears,
  • 3 tablespoons creme de cacao blanc,
  • 12 heaped tablespoons crumbled ginger nuts,
  • 2 tablespoons ginger preserve,
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla,
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder,
  • Juice of one lemon,
  • Grated zest of 1 lemon,
  • 50g cornflour,
  • 200g plain flour,
  • 1 egg,
  • 150g icing sugar,
  • 150g butter

Method

  • Pre-heat the oven to 160C fan and grease and line a seven inch tin
  • Peel the pears and chop into 1cm chunks, toss in the lemon juice to stop oxidisation
  • Cream together the butter, vanilla, creme de cacao, ginger preserve, icing sugar and lemon zest until light a fluffy
  • Add a tablespoon of the flour and whisk in (this stops the egg curdling)
  • Whisk in the egg
  • Whisk in the remaining flour and baking powder which will form a very sticky cohesive dough
  • Stir through 100g of the pears and the white chocolate chunks
  • Sprinkle half the crumbled ginger nuts over the buttered lined tin
  • Spoon in the cake mixture
  • Spread the mixture with a spatula so that it forms a slight well in the centre
  • Put the rest of the pears on the top and press lightly into the mix
  • Sprinkle over the remaining ginger nuts
  • Bake for 60 minutes, possibly a little longer, until a skewer comes away clean then leave in the tin to cool
  • Serve whilst still a little warm with yoghurt

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