Upside down sticky pear & date cake
Serves: 10
Prep: 35 minutes
Bake: 40 minutes
Poached pears
- 4 medium sized pears
- 600ml water
- 300g caster sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- ½ lemon zest
- 5 cloves
Cake batter
- 240g chopped dates
- 1.5 tbsp linseed/flaxseed powder
- 320ml almond milk
- 200ml oil
- 185g brown sugar
- 200g self-raising flour
- 1tsp bicarb soda/bread soda
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- ¼ tsp ground clove
- Dash vanilla
Caramel Sauce
- 240g coconut cream
- 165g dark brown sugar
- 1 tbsp cornflour
Method
- For the pears, add the water, sugar, lemon and spices to a medium pot and heat to dissolve the sugar.
- Peel the pears and add to the warm syrup.
- Bring to a boil for 10-15minutes or until the pears are soft.
- Cut in half and allow to cool in the fridge.
- For the cake, preheat your oven to 180C/160C fan.
- Line a 9” round loose bottom cake tin with parchment paper and set aside.
- Firstly add the dates, almond milk and linseed to a pot and cook for 5 minutes or until the dates are soft, set aside to cool slightly.
- Once cooled, add the oil and mix through.
- Into another bowl, add the flour, sugar, spices and bread soda, mix to combine.
- To this add the date mixture and mix.
- Taking the pears from the fridge, remove the seeds and slice each pear half in half again.
- Arrange the pear slices around the base of the tin and spoon the cake batter on top.
- Place in the preheated oven and bake for 35-40minutes.
- Remove and allow to cool slightly and carefully turn over onto your serving place.
- To make the caramel sauce, simply, heat the coconut cream, cornflour and brown sugar in a pot and cook for a few minutes until the sauce thickens up. Serve warm drizzled over the top.
