Upside-down Pear Gingerbread
This has been our family’s go-to holiday dessert for decades — I just love it. It makes a fantastic vehicle for ice cream or whipped cream, and comes out of the pan pre-decorated… if a slice or two of pear sticks to the pan, just peel it off and put it back where it belongs.
Servings 8
Ingredients
Topping
- 2 tbsp butter, 30 ml
- 2 tbsp honey or corn syrup, 30 ml
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar, 80 ml
Fruit
- 1-2 ripe but firm pears (or tart apples), peeled and thinly sliced
Gingerbread
- 1/4 cup butter, at room temperature, 60 ml
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 125 ml
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup dark molasses, 60 ml
- 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger, or 2 tsp. powdered ginger (or both, 15 ml
- 1 tsp vanilla, 5 ml
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, 250 ml
- 1 tsp baking soda, 5 ml
- 1 tsp cinnamon, 5 ml
- 1/4 tsp allspice (optional), 1 ml
- 1/4 tsp salt, 1 ml
- 3/4 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt thinned with milk, 180 ml
Instructions
- In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice and salt.
- Add half of the dry ingredients to the molasses mixture and stir by hand or on the lowest speed of an electric mixer just until the batter is combined. Add the buttermilk, and then the remaining dry ingredients in the same manner. Pour the batter over the sliced pears.
- Bake the cake for about 40 minutes, until the top is springy to the touch. Let it stand for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the edge of the cake and invert it onto a plate while it’s still warm. (If it cools too much and sticks to the pan, warm it in the oven again before you try to invert it.) Don’t worry if any pear slices stick to the bottom of the pan – simply peel them out and place them back on top of the cake where they belong.
- Serve with whipped cream.