Upside Down Caremalised Pear and Almond Cake (Gluten Free)

Yay! Its coming into winter over here in Albany Western Australia and pears are appearing in the supermarkets and various farmers markets around the place.  I love pears. They lend themselves to so many different recipes both sweet and savoury.  I bought some gorgeous russet and gold coloured Beurre Bosc pears yesterday and then I went searching for a recipe for them. Something pudding like but that my husband Jason , who has severe gluten intolerance, could also enjoy.

I found this lovely recipe written by a lady by the name of Shaina Olmanson from her blog Food For My Family. Here is how I interpreted it and I stayed faithful to her recipe. It looked a lot taller in her blog photos but it really is more like a flan in depth. Very yummy!

First assemble your ingredients and grease and line the base of a  20cm(8 inch) cake tin with baking paper

 

Ingredients

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1 pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

1-2 Beurre Bosc pears

2 eggs, separated

1/4 cup granulated sugar (I used raw caster sugar)

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

3/4 cup of almond meal/flour

2 tablespoons arrowroot powder (I used cornflour)

1/4 teaspoon of ground cardamom

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

In  a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and pinch of salt and stir, cooking till the edges bubble and the sugar is dissolved.

Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. I forgot to do this (adding the vanilla) and the end result worked just fine 😀  Immediately pour the caramel over the baking paper and spreading it out until it coats the base entirely.

Slice the pear in half, de-core it and slice into 1/8-1/4 inch pieces. Arrange the slices over the caramel, fanning them out from the centre.

Beat/whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. You should be able to hold them upside down like I have in my picture and not have them fall out 😀

In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks till thick and pale yellow then add sugar, almond extract, almond meal, arrowroot or cornflour, and the cardamom. The mixture will be quite thick and lumpy.

 

Gently mix in half the egg whites until they’re incorporated, then fold in the remainder of the egg whites. Don’t worry if the batter is streaked with white, its all good :). Do not over mix.

Pour the cake mix over the pears, spreading into an even layer fully covering the pears.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the top is golden brown and center of cake is set.

Remove from oven and invert onto a plate while still warm. Serve warm or at room temperature.

 

I have to say it tasted divine! I ate it standing at the kitchen bench whilst it was still hot 😀

It would also lend itself to the addition of some unsweetened clotted cream as it really is sweet.

Bon appetit!

Gardening joys.

I have been a little bit occupied over the last couple of weeks and haven’t had much time to sit down and write a blog post. I still don’t have much time as i’m off to work soon at 730am but want to give you all a glimpse into what I’ve had going on recently.

We’ve been waiting since June for the man to come and gyprock/plasterboard a few of our back rooms, the hallway and the entrance to our home. He decided to come the day before our youngest daughter arrived for a much awaited visit!!!!!! We managed to get him to just do the room she would be staying in and he did but will be coming back this week now that she has left to finish the job.

Talk about timing. He is a very busy man but I hate feeling like we’re in the wrong when we phone him to ask when he’s coming. Gotta man up and be more forceful. 😀

We have finally had a few nice days in a row and have been able to get some soil/mulch/manure mix delivered for our fruit trees and potted plants and have been shoveling and distributing it like madmen.

We had it tipped from the truck onto the tarpaulin from where we shoveled it into our little wheelbarrow. You can see the outline of the “tipping” and we have a couple of barrow loads left wrapped in the tarpaulin above for my tomato bed. It is such a joy to see how happy and healthy the garden and plants look with a bit of good soil applied. Here are a few more shots of my flowering dwarf Granny Smith apple, Santa Rosa plums and Sweet Williams which grow all year round it seems. Such a cheerful little plant and one of my favorite border plants.

I also took the time to replenish my fruit fly baits as the little beggars are already eyeing my tiny fruits off. I also made my own batch of baits out of a jar, apple cider vinegar and plastic bag with hole in top.

Next weekend I’m thinking I’ll need to start netting my fruit trees to protect them from the parrots I can hear chattering away in the gum trees.

I have 3 weeks of full time work ahead of me so am seriously going to be looking forward to some days off as I have become accustomed to my week on, week off regime now 😀

I hope you all have a lovely Autumn/Spring wherever you may be and are looking forward to the fruits of your labors at the end of it all.