Upside Down Pear Ginger Cake

Pear, ginger cake is a delicious combination.

If you follow me on social media you would know I am not a big baker and I don’t usually make sweets, cakes and I don’t like chocolates.. 😛 But I love to bake once in a while specially during Christmas! This year I am trying to bake cakes with different and fresh fruits and this is how I baked this pear, ginger cake (upside down cake).

I got some delicious Peckham Pears last week and I wanted to make some thing different that wine poached pears, I wanted it be something out of the box. This cake surely is out of the box and packed with amazing flavours and to keep it Christmasy I also added some Ron Zacapa to it. We absolutely loved it and served this cake a bit warm with Vanilla Ice cream, trust me and try this combination, you will devour it.

For this Pear, ginger cake recipe I used my own gluten free flour blend but you can use your own gluten free flour but you may have to adjust the recipe accordingly.

This is how you make this cake.

Ingredients for cake:

• 1 ½ cup gluten free flour
• 115 gm unsalted room temperature butter
• 1 tsp soft butter for greasing the tin
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 90 g sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 1 egg white
• 45 ml (3 tbsp) milk
• 15 ml Ron Zacapa or any rum you have
• 1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
• 1 tsp fresh basil (I used Indian basil) chopped
• ½ cup chopped pears

Ingredients for pears:

• 3 small or 2 medium pear
• 40 g butter
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 tsp basil chopped

Instructions:

Peel, core and slice the pears thinly. Chop the middle part of the pear for the batter.

Grease a 20cm cake tin with butter and line the bottom with baking parchment. Arrange the pear slices in concentric circle. For my pan I used 2 small pears and 1 I chopped it for the cake batter. Melt the butter mentioned for pear, add in the basil. Sprinkle the sugar and salt over the pears in the cake tin. Pour this melted butter over the arranged pears. Keep it aside.

Preheat the oven on 180C/ 350F.

Mix gluten free flour with salt, baking powder and soda. Keep it aside.

Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment cream the butter and sugar. When it’s light and fluffy add in the eggs one at a time. Don’t over whisk.

Add in the ginger, fresh basil and Ron Zacapa and mix it well.

Fold the flour and fold in the chopped pears in. Add the milk. Mix well.

Pour the batter in the pan over the arranged pears. Bake it for 35-42 minutes in the preheated oven on 180C/350F or the toothpick inserted comes out clean.

While the cake is warm take it out of the tin and let it cool on the wire rack.

Serve warm with ice cream.