The arrival of the pear harvest sings autumn. Here’s a delicious syrupy upside-down pear cake in the seasonal tones. It’s coated in a golden caramel made with verjuice. It would make for a lovely Easter celebration dessert, served warm or at room temperature. There’s one clause, a solid round cake tin is needed. If you only have a spring-form cake tin, or perhaps making the caramel seems daunting, there’s an alternative topping given at the end of the recipe, that will suit.

Serves 8-10

4-5 small firm ripe Beurre Bosc or William pears, peeled, halved and core removed

140ml verjuice,

165g (3/4 cup) castor sugar

1 tablespoon glace ginger, finely chopped (optional)

150g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

140g (2/3 cup) brown sugar

2 Yokey Dokey XL eggs

130g (1/2 cup) Greek natural yoghurt, or sour cream

150g (1 cup) Tuerong Farm white or spelt flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Pre-heat oven to 175°C (155°C fan-forced). Grease and line a 22cm round cake tin with baking paper.

To make the caramel, place the sugar and 1/3 cup of verjuice in a medium saucepan over a low heat and stir to dissolve. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring to boil, without stirring and cook for about 4-5 minutes until it turns a golden caramel colour. Watch carefully as the caramel will turn dark very quickly and could burn. Remove the pan from the heat and carefully pour in the remaining verjuice, beware of spluttering, then stir to combine.

Pour the caramel into the pre-prepared tin. Place the pear halves, cut-side down over the caramel. Scatter over the glace ginger, if using. Set aside.

Using electric beaters cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Add the yoghurt and beat again to combine. Sift together the flour, baking powder, spices and salt  and stir into the butter mixture to combine well. Spoon the batter over the pears and spread out with a spatula.

Bake for 45-55 minutes, or until cooked when tested with a skewer (comes out clean when inserted). Stand for 30 minutes to cool, then turn cake upside-down onto a serving plate - with raised side edges - to accommodate the caramel sauce.

Cut into wedges and serve with yoghurt, cream, or ice-cream.

Keep in an airtight container for 2 days.

For an alternative topping, replace the caramel making step. Coat the base of the prepared caked tin (spring form is okay) with 50g of melted butter then sprinkle over 70g (1/3 cup) of brown sugar. Arrange the pears over the sugar layer and spread the cake batter (as above) over the top. Bake as per recipe.

Tips: To remove pear core, use a small teaspoon to scoop out the core, if you don’t have a pear corer tool. Alternatively, quarter the pears and remove core with a paring knife.

 Recipe by Fiona Hammond, March 2024.