The sticky pear and warming ginger makes this a perfect cake for a winters day. The salted caramel sauce is super easy to make and is so tasty!
Ingredients for the pear top
3 pears peeled, cored and cut into thin slices
60g butter
100g light brown sugar
3 chunks of stem ginger (optional) chopped into thin slices
Pinch of sea salt
Ingredients for the cake batter
4 medium eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
280g self-raising flour
150g light brown sugar
225g Stork margarine
1½ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 heaped dessert spoons treacle
Ingredients for the salted caramel drip
1 tin of condensed caramel filling
100g butter
4 tablespoons water
½ teaspoon sea salt
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Preheat the oven to 180 °C and grease and line an 8” round cake tin.
Melt the butter and sugar for the pear top together gently in a pan.
Once melted add a pinch of salt then pour into the base of the tin and arrange the pear slices on top of the sugar and butter mix.
If adding the stem ginger (which I would if you can find it as I love it) sprinkle the slices over the pears.
Next, make the cake batter. Put the eggs, vanilla extract, self-raising flour, light brown sugar, margarine and spices in a large bowl and beat well with an electric mixer.
I tend to really beat this so that the mixture goes paler and is very soft. When well beaten, gently stir in the two dessert spoons of treacle.
Spread the mixture over the pears and smooth down leaving a small dip in the centre of the tin.
Bake the cake mix in the centre of the oven for approx. 45 minutes.
Check the cake is cooked by inserting a wooden skewer and checking that it comes out clean. If it’s not baked keep it in the oven and keep checking every few minutes until it’s done.
Once the cake is cooked, take it out of the oven with oven gloves and allow it to cool a little in the tin.
Once cooled enough to handle carefully turn the tin and release the cake. Gently peel off the baking paper and let the cake cool on a wire rack.
To make the salted caramel drip, heat the condensed caramel filling, butter and water in a pan. Once it starts to bubble take it off the heat and sprinkle in the sea salt.
Place the cake on a serving plate and apply the drip to the edge using a teaspoon to vary the amount to create a drip effect.
You will have lots of sauce left which can be served with the cake. You may even have enough left to use as a dip for other treats such as fruit and biscuits or pour on to ice cream.
This is such an easy and tasty sauce and keeps well in the fridge if you have leftovers.
Enjoy!
