Australian Gourmet Traveller - Brown Sugar Sponge Cake with Caramel Poached Pears

Gourmet Traveller Image

Australian Gourmet Traveller has long been a favourite foodie magazine of mine.  I just love the class that the magazine oozes.  I made this recipe last year around Christmas time and it was a big hit.  My only error being that my syrup was not reduced for long enough and was a little thin.  Overall such a simple recipe and a cake that has wow factor.

Recipe

Serves 10
Cooking Time Prep time 30 mins, cook 1 hr (plus cooling) 


Ingredients

12	eggs, at room temperature
160 gm each	brown sugar and caster sugar
Scraped seeds	of 2 vanilla beans
300 gm	plain flour, triple-sieved
¼ tsp	baking powder
120 gm	butter, melted and cooled
700 gm	crème fraîche
100 ml	pouring cream
30 gm	pure icing sugar, sieved, plus extra for dusting
Caramel pears
750 gm	caster sugar
Juice	and thinly peeled rind of 1½ lemons and 1½ oranges
2 each	cinnamon quills and star anise
1	vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
10	small ripe corella pears, peeled, halved, cores removed with a melon baller
120 ml	dessert wine
90 ml	pouring cream
30 gm	butter, coarsely chopped

Method

1	Preheat oven to 180C. Whisk eggs, sugars and half the vanilla seeds on high speed in an electric mixer until mixture is tripled in volume and holds a trail (10-12 minutes). Transfer to a large bowl, sift over flour and baking powder in two batches, gently fold to combine, then fold in butter. Divide among 4 buttered and floured 20cm-diameter cake tins lined with baking paper on the bases and bake, swapping tins halfway through cooking (see note), until cakes are dark golden and centres spring back when gently pressed (15-20 minutes). Cool slightly in tins, then turn out and cool completely on a wire rack.
2	Meanwhile, for caramel pears, combine sugar, rinds, juices, spices, vanilla bean and seeds and 1 litre water in a large saucepan, stir over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves. Add pears, cover closely with a round of baking paper, weight with a plate and bring to the simmer. Reduce heat to medium and cook until just tender (20-25 minutes). Remove pears from liquid (set aside), then strain cooking liquid into a large deep-sided frying pan and simmer over medium-high heat until mixture turns caramel (25-35 minutes). Add dessert wine, cream and butter (be careful as hot caramel may spit), then stir until combined. Add pears to pan and cook, spooning caramel over pears until glazed (2-3 minutes), then set aside.
3	Whisk crème fraîche, cream, icing sugar and remaining vanilla seeds in a bowl until firm peaks form (2-3 minutes). Refrigerate until required.
4	To serve, place one cake on a serving plate, spread with a third of the crème fraîche mixture. Repeat with remaining cakes and crème fraîche mixture, finishing with a cake. Dust with icing sugar and serve with caramel pears and syrup.

Note If you don’t have four 20cm cake tins, or your oven isn’t large enough to cook all the cakes at once, make and cook half a batch of the cake mixture at a time.

This recipe is from the August 2010 issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller. 

My Brown Sugar Sponge Cake with Caramel Pears