Monday, March 17, 2008

Pear and Cardamom Spice Cake

This moist, fruit and nut cake is delicious, the combination of pears and cardamom give it a unique flavor. I entered this cake in the Spring Fruit Sensation event hosted by Eat The Right Stuff.

Pear and Cardamom Spice Cake Recipe

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
2 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. crushed cardamom
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 Tbsp. poppy seeds
5 pears, peeled, cored and sliced
3 or more walnut halves
3 Tbsp. honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease and flour springform pan.

Cream together butter and sugar, add eggs and mix well. Combine flour and baking powder, add to butter mixture along with milk and mix well. Add cardamom, chopped nuts and poppy seeds. Reserve one third of the pear slices, set aside. Chop the rest of the pears and fold into batter.

Pour batter into baking pan. Fan pears around the pan, add a few walnuts in center.

Bake for 1 1/4 hours or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove cake from oven and let cool in pan for 15 minutes. Brush top of cake with honey and cool on wire rack.

This recipe has been adapted from "Cakes & Cake Decorating, Step-by-Step" by Angela Nilson, Sarah Maxwell & Janice Murfitt

14 comments:

Lucy said...

Absolutely beautiful & scrumptious looking cake you have there! You Rock!!

OhioMom said...

Thank you Lucy :) This is really a delicious cake ... the food critic could hardly wait for it to cool, and then ate two pieces :)

Michelle said...

OMG....it's gorgeous!!! Love the shape and how you decorated with the pears is just so pretty and unique. Definitely a 'must try' recipe.

Michelle

OhioMom said...

Oh this is definitely a yummy cake, how can you go wrong with fruits and nuts ?

Michelle said...

What kind of pan did you use?

Michelle

OhioMom said...

I had to check my post, thought I forgot to mention it, I didn't :)

I used a springform pan, lightly greased and floured.

Michelle said...

With the scalloped edge, I thought you had used a unique pan. It really is a gorgeous cake. And with cardamon and pears what could be better!

OhioMom said...

The way the pear slices are fanned out and the cake slightly rising between, it gives it a scalloped look. Not a great pic, somedays I can and somedays I can't ... LOL !

Nancy said...

Wow, that looks like a cake I need to add to my recipe cache.

OhioMom said...

Hi Nancy

I am loving this new cake cookbook, lots of recipes I want to try ... the food critic loves anything with fruits and nuts, so do I.

Aimée said...

Now I know what to do with those pears ripening all-too-fast on my counter. Beautiful picture!

OhioMom said...

Thank you Aimee, I like your blog, I will have to spend some more time checking out your recipes.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Maggie said...

Yum! This sounds wonderful and looks amazing!

OhioMom said...

Hi Maggie

It is a yummy cake.

Thanks for stopping by ...