This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
Primrose’s birthday is this week and I seem to be making hundreds of cakes at the moment. A cake for her birthday, one for afternoon tea, one for over the weekend……it goes on! Primrose simply loves cake. Rather unfortunately, I am no baker! Usually I’m pretty awful at making them look pretty but fingers crossed, they always taste as they are meant to! This one I can promise you is foolproof and if I can bake it, then I challenge even the worst baker not to have a go. Ginger marmalade is easy to track down in the supermarket too but so feel free to use ordinary marmalade if you can’t find it. Deliciously moist and the perfect slice with a cup of afternoon tea.
Pear and ginger marmalade cake
Ingredients
4 free range eggs
butter, softened
caster sugar
self-raising flour
2 tbsp ginger marmalade
1 tbsp milk if needed
3 pears
a knob of butter
mixed spice
How to prepare
Make a classic sponge cake mix – weigh 4 free range eggs (in their shells) and then using this weight, weigh out the same amount of butter and sugar. The measurement for self-raising flour will be the same too.
Grease an 8 inch cake tin liberally with butter and set the oven to 180 degrees centigrade/gas mark 4. Cream the butter and sugar in mixer until the mixture becomes light and fluffy.
Begin by cracking one egg into the mixer and beating this until it is blended in. Repeat using the remainder of the eggs, adding 1 tbsp of the weighed self-raising flour to the fourth egg. Stir in the ginger marmalade at the point before adding the flour.
Fold in the rest of the self-raising flour with a metal spoon until it is all folded in. If the mixture is a little stiff, add 1 tbsp of whole milk to loosen it a little. Spoon the cake mixture into the cake tin and leave to one side.
Peel the pears and chop into large slices. In a frying pan, add the butter and mixed spice, allowing the butter to melt before adding the pears and cooking for 2-3 minutes. Once the pears have softened, take the pan off the heat. Carefully, add the pears to the top of the cake, pushing them down into the mixture. Add any buttery juice that remain in the pan to the top of the cake.
Bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes. Using a skewer, test the readiness of the cake by inserting the skewer into the middle. If the skewer comes out clean, then the cake is ready to take out of the oven.
Leave the cake to cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from the tin and transferring to a wire rack. Once completely cooled, mix together a little icing sugar and water together to drizzle over the top as a light icing.