Nigel Slater’s pear and ginger cake, and baked pear with maple syrup and orange recipes (2024)

I can read the season simply by looking at the pear tree outside the window. Right now its pointed leaves are turning to amber, the stage before they develop their deep crimson winter hue. Among them hang the fruit, green freckled brown, almost round, fat as cherubs and hard as rock. Called, appropriately enough, Winter Nellis, left on the tree they will ripen late, in time for Christmas.

The greengrocers and markets are currently full of pears, from the long tapered Conference, a crisp fruit that I toss with chicory and blue cheese for an autumn salad, to the heavy, bulging majesty of the Comice that deserves a course all to itself. Pears are relished in this house, and sit in different stages of ripeness, on plates in the kitchen cupboards.

I’ve been baking them, too, this week, with a syrup of agave and rosewater and another of maple syrup and orange that I think lovely enough to include here. There has been cake, too. A shallow spiced cake with ginger, both ground and in syrup form, with a layer of pears soft as butter.

Pear and ginger cake

I often poach the fruit, halved and cored, in a light sugar syrup with some liquid from a jar of preserved ginger and eat them with yogurt and toasted oats. Breakfast of champions, that. The pears should lie at the base of the cake.

Makes 16 pieces

For the icing:
icing sugar 250g
lemon juice 3 tbsp
preserved ginger in syrup 3 knobs
Demerara or golden sugar crystals 1 tbsp
poppy seeds 1 tbsp

You will need a square cake tin measuring approximately 22cm

Peel, halve and core the pears, then cut them into 2cm dice. Warm the butter in a shallow, nonstick pan, then add the pears and leave to cook for 10 minutes over a low to moderate heat, until they are pale gold and translucent. Towards the end of their cooking time, add the spoonful of agave or golden syrup. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Line the base and sides of the cake tin with baking parchment.

Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4.

Sift the flour with the ground ginger, mixed spice, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Pour the syrup into a small saucepan, add the butter and the muscovado and warm over a moderate heat until the butter has melted. When the mixture has simmered for a minute remove from the heat.

Break the eggs into a bowl, add the milk and beat lightly to combine. Pour the butter and syrup mixture into the flour and spices and stir gently until no flour is visible. Mix in the milk and eggs. Fold in the cooked pears and scrape the mixture into the lined cake tin. The pears should sink to the bottom. Slide the cake into the oven and bake for about 35-40 minutes, until it is lightly puffed and spongy to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin.

To make the icing, put the icing sugar into a bowl, then beat in the lemon juice, either with a fork or using a small hand whisk. Take it steady, only using enough to make an icing thick enough that it takes a while to fall from the spoon.

Remove the cake from its tin and peel back the parchment. Cut the cake into 16 equal pieces and place them on a cooling rack set over a tray. Trickle the icing over the cakes, letting a little run down the sides of each. When the icing is almost set, add a slice of crystallised ginger and a scattering of sugar crystals and poppy seeds.

Baked pears, maple syrup and orange

Long pepper is not essential to this recipe, and you can omit it comfortably, but with its hint of nutmeg-meets-vanilla it is a charming if subtle addition. Late last year on a grey, damp afternoon, I cooked some quince in this way. They shone.

Serves 3
lemon 1
pears 3
maple syrup 150ml
oranges 3 (150ml of juice)
long pepper 2 whole
vanilla pod 1

Half fill a medium-sized mixing bowl with cold water. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze into the water, this will stop the pears discolouring. Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6.

Peel the pears, halve them from stem to base, then remove the cores with the help of a teaspoon, adding each fruit to the acidulated water as you go.

Pour the maple syrup into a jug or mixing bowl, cut a couple of strips of zest from one of the oranges and drop into the maple syrup, then squeeze the remaining oranges. You need 150ml of juice. Stir the juice into the maple syrup. Drop in the long pepper and vanilla pod. Remove the halves of pears from the acidulated water and place them snuglycut-side up, in a baking dish. Pour over the maple syrup, orange juice and spices.

Bake, uncovered, for 45-50 minutes until the pears are thoroughly tender to the point of a skewer. It is worth checking their progress every 15 minutes or so, as the exact timing will depend on their ripeness. Serve warm, spooning the juices over the pears.

Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @NigelSlater