My August pear cake

[Meryl]

Hi @dragnlaw, here's the recipe you kindly requested :

Ingredients :

300g plain flour
150g sugar
3 whole eggs
100g melted butter
1 sachet of baking powder (16g)
grated lemon rind (or lemon aroma)
1 sachet of powdered vanilla aroma
100ml milk
Cinnamon (optional)
3/4 ripe peeled pears (not too small, otherwise you'll need more)

Procedure :

Preheat oven at 180 degrees or 170 if ventilated.
Whisk eggs and sugar in a bowl, add butter, milk, lemon rind and continue mixing Then add the sifted flour a little at a time while mixing, followed by baking powder and finally, the chopped/sliced pears.
If you like, a sprinkle of cinnamon.
Pour mixture in a greased and floured cake tin (24/26 inch) and bake for approx. 40 minutes.

This is the classic recipe for our traditional "Torta di Mele" - Apple Cake, which is a typical Autumn cake when we have huge varieties of apples on sale, but in Summer we have August pears, so we adapt the recipe .
You can add chocolate chips or raisins for an even more scrumptious delight.

 

[dragnlaw]

Thank You Merle!
I'm going to take it that the sachet of vanilla powder would be about = to either 1/2 tsp/2.5 ml or even 1 tsp/5ml? I'll start with the lesser amount.

I like that any fruit is interchangeable with it!

I do have another question. To me a 'torte' is large and rather flat whereas a cake is smaller in circumference and thicker, fluffier.
Your 24/26 inch cake tin doesn't really fit either of my descriptions. Is it really that big?

 

[Meryl]

Thank You Merle!
I'm going to take it that the sachet of vanilla powder would be about = to either 1/2 tsp/2.5 ml or even 1 tsp/5ml? I'll start with the lesser amount.

I like that any fruit is interchangeable with it!

I do have another question. To me a 'torte' is large and rather flat whereas a cake is smaller in circumference and thicker, fluffier.
Your 24/26 inch cake tin doesn't really fit either of my descriptions. Is it really that big?

Oops, sorry, I meant centimeters, not inches, my Anglo-Italian confusion again!
Wow, it would be very big indeed!!!

I usually use my 24cm cake tin for those doses. "Torta" is the Italian translation for "cake", like you say, thick and fluffy, and spongy .

 

[dragnlaw]

I'm useless when it comes to metric - weather or measure. I have to look up everything. My kids were quite young when Canada went metric and they have no problem but I still have not been able to handle it.

 

[taxlady]

Haha, I didn't notice that it said 24/26 inch cake pan and not 24/26 cm cake pan. I know that 24 cm is a reasonable size for a cake pan, so my brain just understood it as cm.

 

[dragnlaw]

Plus taxy, you are in all probability much more comfortable with metric. As I said, I always have to double check my figures.

 

[Meryl]

I forgot about the vanilla powder @dragnlaw , we buy packets of single-dose sachets, and each one weighs about 0,5g, very little,for an average size cake like the one I mentioned. Maybe equals a couple of pinches? It depends what's on sale at your local supermarkets, we also buy vanilla extract as a substitute, single-dose - each one is 2ml. I would have used 1 single dose. Extract is even more aromatic than the powder, of course.

 

[dragnlaw]

Good to know! Thanks.
I guess 1/2 tsp will be more than enough.

 

[Meryl]

Good to know! Thanks.
I guess 1/2 tsp will be more than enough.

Yes, even a 1/4 tsp would be enough.

 

[Aunt Bea]

Thanks!

I’m looking forward to trying this!

Some of the recipes I’ve seen use olive oil instead of butter.

 

[Meryl]

Yes, I sometimes use sun-flower oil when I want to make it lighter, less cholesterol.