Pear, Passion Fruit, Lemon and Almond Cake
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes (concurrently)
Serves: 6-8
- 180g/6ozs. butter, softened
- 180g/6ozs. caster or superfine sugar
- 3 eggs, room temperature
- 140g/5ozs. almond meal
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
- 70g/2.4ozs cake flour*
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 small pears (Corella)
For Syrup
- 60ml/2flozs. hot water
- 75g/2.6ozs. sugar
- 100g/3.5ozs. passion fruit pulp
- Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
Buyer's tip: you can buy cake flour at the supermarket or make it yourself. For every cup of flour, replace 2 tablespoons of plain all purpose flour with cornflour/fine cornstarch
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 160C/320F and line the base and sides of a 20cm/8inch round springform tin with parchment. Fit a mixer with a beater attachment and beat the butter and sugar together for 5 minutes until pale and smooth. Add eggs one at a time beating well between each addition. Add the almond meal and vanilla paste on the lowest speed (or do this by hand). Then sift in the flour and baking powder and mix by hand, making sure not to overmix. It will have a buttercream-like texture. Spoon into the prepared tin.
Step 2 -Peel the pears and core them. I like using a melon baller for this. Place each half cut side down submerging them into the cake batter. Bake for 45 minutes until the skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Step 3 -While the cake is baking bring the water and sugar to a boil in a small saucepan and dissolve the sugar. Add the passion fruit pulp, lemon zest and juice and turn down to medium heat and allow to simmer for 5 minutes until slightly thickened (you don't want a thick syrup). Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Then poke some holes in the cake and pour over the passion fruit and lemon syrup.