Party In My Tummy

When I asked if there was anything I could bring to a party we attended on the weekend, 
the hostess quickly asked for that pear cake thing I made last visit.

After posting on twitter that it was in the oven, I ended up sharing the recipe with a handful 
of my twitter buddies, I'd already had it in my head that it would make a good blog post, 
so no time like the present.

Last year for Christmas one of my besties and I decided that instead of buying gifts for each other we would finally book in a day with Tonia Todman. I suppose Tonia,  is the Australia's own version of Martha Stewart.  She offers different classes from interior decorating to flower arranging but it was the cooking classes we were most interested in.

We made a delicious Lemon Tart, but it's one of those recipes that you need to plan ahead for. We also made a pear and almond cake that looks and sounds fancy, but it is honestly the easiest thing to whip up and tastes soooo good.

Pear and almond cake 

• Preheat oven to 170. Grease springform tin and line with baking paper.
• Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Add eggs one at a time, beating well between eah addition
• Stir in almond meal,baking powder and flour by hand.  
• Spread mixture into prepared tin, top with pears, cut side downwards, placing them around the edge of the cake, narrow ends facing towards centre. (we also sprinkled the bottoms with plain flour, I think this was to prevent them from sinking too much).
• Bake cake for about 50 minutes or until skewer comes away clean.  

There is a fancy glaze that came with it, but I just make a syrup using the juice from the jar and some sugar and boil it until it turns into a syrup, then pour that over the warm cake.


What I loe the most is that this recipe is a great base and you ould put different fruits into it depending on taste.
I also made the orange and poppy seed version. Any excuse for cream cheese icing........

Orange and poppy seed - add chopped zest from 3 oranges and about 2 tbsp poppy seeds.

cream cheese icing 1 block (250 gms) cream cheese 1 teaspoon butter 1 cup icing sugar