Pear & Raspberry Cake – Gluten Free

We grow two most delicious desert pears ‘Louise Bonne of Jersey’ and ‘Beth’. Unfortunately, with pears, they all ripen within a short period of time, usually around a fortnight, so a cake beckons.

We are lucky enough to have a long south facing boundary in the garden, where we built a wall.

The fruit trees grow along the wall. A Plum and Cherry are grown as fans and a Fig as an espalier. The Apples and Pear trees are grown as cordons. This means a single stem planted at a 45-degree angle.

We get more than enough fruit off them grown this way, with the big benefit of not having to climb a ladder!

The two pear trees seem to be taking it in turns to produce the maximum fruit. Last year the beautiful red ‘Louise Bonne of Jersey’ was covered in fruit. This year she has only produced four pears.

‘Beth’ on the other hand, produced very little last year but has been covered this year. I really don’t know what’s going on with them, but I’m grateful that they are taking it in turns.

Needless to say, today I am cooking with ‘Beth’.

As well as having more pears than we can eat, the autumn fruiting raspberries we grow ‘Polka’, also produce punnet after punnet!

However delicious all of this fruit is, there are only so many pears and raspberries you can eat in a day, so something has to be done to preserve them.

Pear and Raspberry Cake

I like to bake my cakes in loaf shaped tins, this is because they are easier to portion up. I always slice them before freezing, making it easier to get them out a slice at a time out.

You’ll notice that there is very little sugar in my cake recipes, this is because we tend to eat them for breakfast with yogurt. I also think with the sweet fruit the extra sugar is unnecessary.

It’s mainly a case of what your palette gets used too and you can add more sugar if you wish.

The reason I add crushed nuts is also to do with eating the cake for breakfast for extra protein, you can easily miss them out too.

I make the cake with gluten free flour, but you can just as easily use ordinary flour, it will taste just as scrumptious!

Ingredients

2 Desert Pears
130g Raspberries
130g Butter
50g Sugar
1tsp Honey
2 Free Range Eggs
100g Ground Almonds
50g Self-raising Gluten Free Flour
1tsp Baking Powder – G.F
1tsp Bicarbonate of soda
3 tsp Ground Nuts of your choice

Method

Turn the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

Cut a piece of greaseproof paper, twice the size of your cake tin. This will allow you to pull the cake out using the excess.

Place your tin on top of the greaseproof paper and cut out the four corners.

Using one of the off cuts, grease the tin with butter. Then place the paper inside making sure it’s stuck to the buttery tin.

Gather all your ingredients together and weigh them out, I always find this easier before I start.

Weigh all the dry ingredients into the same small bowl, almonds, flour, baking powder, bicarbonate and nuts.

Peel, core and chop the pears into chunks. Try to resist eating any!

They will start to discolour slightly, but you won’t notice once they are baked into the cake.

Place the butter, sugar and honey into a reasonably large mixing bowl and cream them together until the mixture gets lighter in colour.

Add the eggs and whisk on full power again. Don’t worry if the mixture looks a bit curdled, it will all come together.

Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix thoroughly again with the mixer. It will be quite stiff, but it needs to be as the fruit will make it very moist.

Now with a large spoon carefully mix in the pears, then the raspberries, reserving a few to sprinkle on top.

Scrape all of the mixture into the cake tin, levelling out carefully, as to not knock all of the air out of the mixture.

Sprinkle the remaining raspberries on the top.

Bake for 30 minutes. Then to check if the cake is cooked, stick a skewer into the middle, pull it out and if the skewer is clear, the cake is cooked. If it has any mixture on, then it is not. Put back into the oven and check after another 5 minutes. Re-peat this until the skewer is clear.

Leave for 5 minutes, then very carefully lift the cake out using the excess paper. If it looks like it may break, ideally get someone to help you, so that you can use two hands on each side.

Remember, any helpers will want some of the cake!

Lift onto a cooling rack, and resist cutting before it is cool!

Perfect for breakfast, served with yogurt, or for those with a sweeter tooth, a nice scoop of the Uk’s favourite (and mine too) Carte D’Or vanilla ice-cream.