Pear, Almond & Rosemary Cake
When you're too unambitious to make a pear frangipane tart, this cake does an excellent stand-in. Perfect for dessert with some whipped cream, or great for a breakfast with plain greek yogurt! Sub in whatever herb you fancy, and any semi-soft seasonal fruit (like plums or peaches) could be used in place of pears. Adapted from Ruth Tam.
Ingredients
- 130 g butter softened
- 20 g olive oil extra virgin is fine
- 160 g light brown sugar
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp minced fresh rosemary or any fresh herb
- 3 large eggs
- 2 g fine sea salt
- 100 g ricotta whole milk is best
- 75 g ground almonds or almond flour
- 150 g AP flour
- 14 g (3 tsp) baking powder
- 3 large pears mostly ripe, but firm is still ok, pears, cut into ⅓” slices
- Flaked almonds and demerara sugar for topping
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 8” or 9” metal cake or springform pan, adding parchment to bottom if desired.
- Cream by hand butter, olive oil, brown sugar, lemon zest, eggs, rosemary and sea salt in a large bowl. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing well in between each. Add ricotta and ground almonds. Mix. The mixture will look split but it’s fine!
- Sift the flour and baking powder in a large bowl. Whisk to further combine.
- Add the wet mixture to the flour/baking powder mixture. Mix with a whisk until just starting to combine, then switch to a rubber spatula to gently mix until just combined.
- Pour and spread into prepared pan. Top with fans of pears. Top bare batter between the pears with flaked almonds. Scatter demerara sugar all over the top.
- Bake for 45-55 minutes, until golden (about 190-200F temp in middle of cake if you’re testing).
- Allow to cool for 15 minutes in the pan, or until it’s not too hot ot touch. Slide a knife or offset spatula around the edge of the cake, and release from the pan onto a cooling rack to finish cooling.