Caramelized Pear Gingerbread

 What to do with a surplus of pears?  Happens every Fall.  This recipe is from the LCBO's Food & Drink magazine. The recipes are well worth trying!

Classic soda gingerbread is topped with pears while caramel sauce enticingly drizzles down the sides. It is very rich in an English pudding-like manner-perfect fare as the days get shorter and pears are at peak ripeness.  This makes a dense cake with great ginger "y" notes.

Serves eight

Ingredients

Topping:

3 tbsp        unsalted butter
½ cup        lightly packed brown sugar
2 ripe         medium-size pears, soft but not mushy

Cake:

½ cup        molasses
½ cup        milk
1 egg
1 tbsp        finely grated fresh ginger
2¼ cups    all-purpose flour
¼ cup        granulated sugar
1 tsp          baking soda
¼ tsp         salt
¼ cup        butter, melted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC).

To make topping, put butter in a 9-inch (23-cm) round cake pan and place in preheated oven for 3 to 4 minutes or until butter is melted. Sprinkle with brown sugar. Peel pears, core and thinly slice into wedges. Arrange decoratively over brown sugar, overlapping as needed.

To make cake, whisk molasses with milk, egg and ginger until blended. Mix flour with sugar, soda and salt; add molasses mixture and melted butter. Stir until almost smooth (batter will be thick). Spread over pears. Level top.

Immediately bake in centre of preheated oven for 45 minutes or until edges of cake pull away from sides and a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from oven; run a knife around cake edge.

Place a large plate with sides over cake top. Together turn upside down; cake will fall onto the plate. Replace any pears that stick to pan; run a rubber spatula around bottom to get last of caramel sauce onto cake. Serve warm with crème anglais or lightly whipped cream.

**I made this recipe using four small springform pans (3") and one six inch pan.  I adjusted the cooking times accordingly:

For the three inch cakes, first 15 minutes, then another 10 minutes to cook the middle of the cakes.

For the six inch cake, about 35 minutes.  Be sure to check for doneness when you take out of the oven.