your best pear cake please?

[metalelephant]

I have flour, baking powder, eggs, butter, overripe pears (near death's door really) and vanilla extract... Any suggestions that will make this delectable?

With a big nod towards St. Hugh of River Cottage

This first bit is not based on precise quantities...

Melt a large knob of butter in a pan (I use a wide based frying pan) and add a couple of tablespoons of caster sugar. This needs to cook slowly to to make a kind of caramel. Meanwhile peel and core the pears and cut vertically into thick slices. Place these in the caramel mixture and cook for a couple of minutes - longer if the pear juice thins it out - you are aiming for a sugary, syrupy mixture.

Make a cake batter with 4oz flour, 4oz butter, 4oz of sugar, 2 eggs and a teaspoon or so of vanilla. Put this into a prepared tin. Spoon the pears and the caramel sauce over the top. Bake in the oven as for a Victoria sponge (can't think of the oven temps off the top of my head, sorry) but it takes longer as the fruit makes the cake more moist - keep checking every 5 minutes or so after the first 15 or 20 minutes. When the cake is cooked remove from the oven. The pears may sink throughout the cake and the top should be golden brown and a bit crusty.

It is lovely served warm with custard, but equally nice cold.

I make this with half flour and half ground almonds as it makes the cake denser, but it is lovely.

this sounds heavenly, thanks...will concoct something based on it and will report back!

Angelpantser, even though my cake was not a verbatim version, your recipe inspired a rather nice if not less sophisticated version...

I was worried of my super soft pears melting rather than caramelising, and then remembered I had a can of caramel condensed milk bought on a whim.

I laid the tinned caramel milk on the cake tin, added a layer of pear slices and spooned some vanilla flavour cake batter over them. Then I added some more cocoa flavoured cake batter and baked it (not to over-complicate things, i had made far too little at first and, as I whipped up some more, I thought cocoa might go nicely with the pears).

It's delicious though supersweet, and the top is a bit lumpy as it didn't come out if the tin without a little scrapping.

Next time I will make it like you suggested rather than upside down...

Thanks for your help!

Sounds gorgeous!

I love caramel - I may have to buy a tin to mix with some apples for a posh apple crumble. I will have to put it off until after my summer holiday as I don't think WeightWatchers will approve of me scoffing the lot before DH and the kids get a look in - and I don't do small portions! and I don't want to look like they've Freed Willy and put him in a bathing suit

If you find that you haven't got any caramel, it's quite easy to make.

500ml milk and 250g sugar
Heat the sugar and milk gently in a heavy-bottomed pan until the sugar dissolves, and then turn heat up. Cook stirring until golden and thick.

If you use 1l milk - worth keeping a carton of uht in the cupboard, it makes 2 jars. Apparently it keeps.

What is a bit weird, is that the yield varies quite a bit, and it's not that I've eaten it.