Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Raspberry and pear cake


Don't you just love getting the newspaper on the weekend, putting your feet up on the couch or bed, and spending a few lazy hours reading it?  This is one of my favourite pastimes, although I seem to do it less and less these days.  I  look forward especially to reading the insert magazines, which are full of columns and stories and, best of all, recipes.   

On Saturday, the magazine in The Age is called Good Weekend, and regularly features recipes by one of Australia's top chefs, Neil Perry, of Rockpool and Spice Temple fame.  I tear any recipes out that I fancy and put them in my enormous recipe stash, fervently hoping that one day I make at least some of them.

Last month, Neil featured a raspberry and pear cake in his column, which immediately caught my eye.  I love fluffy, fruit-filled cakes, and this one fit the bill nicely.

The cake was easy to make, and the longest step was the baking time of one hour and fifteen minutes.  For my labour, I was rewarded with a fluffy, buttery, moist, spongy cake studded liberally with raspberries and pear chunks.  In a word - devine!



To make this cake yourself, you will need:

2 ripe pears, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
juice of one lemon
180g butter, softened
180g sugar
2 eggs
200g self raising flour
100g almond meal
2 tablespoons milk
250g fresh or frozen raspberries (I only used 125g which was plenty)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius.  Spray a 20cm springform pan with spray oil, and line the base with baking paper.

Pour the lemon juice over the chopped pears and toss to cover the pear chunks so that they don't brown.

Put the butter and sugar into the bowl  of a stand mixer, and beat until pale and creamy.  In a cup, beat the eggs together with a fork, then add it in a steady stream to the butter and sugar mixture while continuing to beat it.

In a separate bowl, sift in the flour, then whisk in the almond meal.  Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, fold the flour and almond meal into the butter mixture in 3 separate lots.  The batter will become very thick - don't worry!  Stir in the milk, then carefully add the pears and raspberries to the batter and fold into the mixture with the rubber spatula.

Place the batter into the prepared springform pan, and smooth over the top with a metal spatula or knife.  Put the cake into the pre-heated oven and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until cooked through.  Remove the cooked cake from the oven and cool in the springform pan on a wire rack.

Once the cake is cool, run a knife around the edge of the pan to release the cake from the sides, then take the cake out of the pan.  Dust with icing sugar if desired and serve.  


This is a really lovely cake - the type that you would like every day with your afternoon cup of tea.

21 comments:

  1. That cake looks fabulous! It makes me wish it were autumn here in the northern hemisphere!

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  2. Thanks Lauren - it's a goodie. Two people asked for the recipe.

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  3. Perfect recipe since pears are in season. Love the simple flavours.

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  4. On Saturdays, I'd grab the paper after my father finished it, and clip all the recipes I could find in the magazine inserts. I have a whole scrapbook full of recipes collected from Good Weekend!

    I love the look of the cake - pear and raspberry is a lovely combination.

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  5. I love pears cakes! look delicious gloria

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  6. Your cake looks fluffy! What a great recipe. My friend always clips recipes out of Parade, a magazine insert in most Sunday newspapers here.

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  7. That looks divine! And the cake looks so different to anything that is served at Rockpool Bar & Grill and Spice Temple too :)

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  8. Ooooh, that sounds really rather lovely. Bookmarking it for later in the year when, hopefully, I'll have my first crop of raspberries!

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  9. looks so good- I am trying to remember if I saw the recipe or if it was a weekend I didn't even get to the recipes - would love a piece of this and time to relax over the weekend newspaper

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  10. Oh! Your cake looks pretty with the color of the raspberries...like the idea of pears together with the raspberries...so Springy...hope you are having a great week :-)

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  11. Pear and raspberry are a wonderful combination and this is a great snack or breakfast cake.

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  12. Love how tall and pretty this cake turned out :)

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  13. This cake looks so yummy, raspberries make anything better! Now I have a kitchen scale I can make recipes in grams. I'm so excited. Doesn't take much to excite me! Have a great day.

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  14. My mum and I have just put the cake in the oven; really looking forward to eating it! She is also a Aussie lawyer who loves to cook. Seems to be quite a few of those around...

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  15. Hi Tash, hope the cake went well.

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  16. Thanks so much for posting this recipe. I also tear out Nel's recipes that I like. I cooked this cake a couple of times with great success but then my wife through the magazine out before I got around to ripping it out! Thanks again.

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  17. Thanks for writing ths up! I lost my copy from the paper. This cake will work with any fruits of similar texture. I didn't have pears or raspberries but I did have poached quince. It worked perfectly and served with yoghurt and honey makes a delicious dessert. I'm off to make another one now!

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  18. I love the look of this cake too! Bookmarking it!:D

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  19. Hi. After a recent visit to Qld and 5 nieces! I was given this raspberry/pear cake mix.Two weeks after my return home,I gave it a go.......think measurements were not in imperial(I'm in UK!) It came out looking fine......just one issue.....after the 50 mins in oven Joanne said,it was underdone.....can I put it back in and give it more time????? Does'nt help to be a bit drunk while writing this! It looked SO GOOD too!.
    Larry Duncan,67 in Gloucester,U.K.

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    1. Hi Larry, if it hasn't been out for too long, sure, but if ir's cooled, maybe not. You could always try toasting the underdone slices under a grill or in the pan - nice slathered with butter. Ovens vary so cook times are always approximate - you have to test the cake with a skewer and by feel (springy in the centre) to know if they are done. Best wishes, Cakelaw

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