Pear-Almond Cake

Pear Almond Cake

This rich, almond cake is a showstopper perfect for dinner parties. Yet, it’s so easy you can whip up this pear almond cake for a mid-afternoon treat. 

4.0 from 1 reviews
Pear Almond Cake
 
Makes 6 servings
Ingredients
  • 1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1½ cups (300 grams) granulated sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
  • ¼ teaspoon (0.75 gram) kosher salt
  • ⅓ cup whole milk
  • ½ teaspoon almond extract
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 large red pear, cored and cut into 12 thin slices
  • ½ cup (57 grams) sliced almonds
  • Garnish: confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9-inch cast-iron skillet with baking spray with flour.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and granulated sugar at medium speed until fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape sides of bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  3. In a small bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture, beating just until combined after each addition. Beat in extracts. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Place pears cut side down in a pinwheel fashion over batter.
  4. Bake until lightly browned, 25 to 30 minutes. Sprinkle with almonds, and bake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 10 to 15 minutes more. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, and serve warm.

 

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4 COMMENTS

    • Hey Janis,

      This skillet cake will work fine even without a chemical leavener. We cream the sugar and butter to whip air into the batter, giving it lift and tender crumb, and then add quite a few eggs to give it structure. With these two ingredients, we didn’t have any need to add any chemical leavener, like baking soda or baking powder.

  1. Hi! I made this cake today. It smells wonderful! I am wondering about two steps:

    1) The cake has oil settled on top. It appears to have too much butter. I used 16OZ, per the recipe. Is that the accurate amount of butter?

    2) At what stage of the recipe do you add the milk? It is not mentioned in the instructions.

    Thanks!
    kathy

    • Hi Kathy,

      Thank you so much for your questions! In regards to the butter issue, the recipe calls for 227 grams of butter, or about 8 ounces of butter. So, 16 ounces of butter would’ve been about double what the recipe calls for, hence the excess oil. For the milk, in step 3 you’ll gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture alternately with the milk. In other words, you’ll add about half of your flour mixture to the butter mixture, mix, add your milk, mix, then add the remainder of the flour mixture and mix until just combined.

      Hope this helps! Happy Baking!

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