Oct 25

Oct 25 Cranberry Pear Cornmeal Cake

So this is an interesting one. I pretty much came up with when I said, “hey shouldn’t pears and cranberries go well together in a cake?” What I ended up with was something a bit sweet, rather tart, with great moisture and an interesting texture. Otherwise a nice treat if you want to try something just a bit different.

The Recipe

Servings: 8 | Prep Time: 5-10 mins | Bake Time: 50-60 mins

Ingredients

1¼ c. flour
¾ c. cornmeal
2 t. baking powder
¼ t. baking soda
½ c. brown sugar
½ c. granulated sugar
Zest of a lemon
½ t. salt
2 eggs
½ c. melted butter
¾ c. plain yogurt
2 pears, chopped
1 c. fresh cranberries

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and sugar your chosen cake tin. I used a 9” tube pan, but you could use a similarly sized round, square, bundt, rectangle, etc. pan.

This is one of the quickest and most straightforward preparations of anything I have ever baked. All you need to do is combine the dry ingredients in one large bowl and the wet ones in another. The only difficulty in that is deciding whether the sugar is “wet” or “dry.” I was taught that it was a wet ingredient, despite its dry appearance. Most of the recipes I read, however, mixed the sugar in with the dry ingredients. Since this is such a simple recipe it probably doesn’t make too much of a difference, but it is something for everyone to keep in mind when preparing other recipes.

Moving on back to the recipe. You’ve got your wet ingredients and the dry ones. Then you basically just pour the wet ones into the dry ones and mix it up with a spatula until it is combined. Throw in your fruit and mix it again. And there you have it your cake mix ready for the pan IN ALL OF 5 MINUTES. I’M YELLING BECAUSE I’M TRYING TO CONVEY HOW SERIOUSLY EASY THIS IS.

Pour the mix into your prepared tin and pop it into the oven. Mine took an hour, but I’d suggest checking it starting at 45 minutes since ovens are a fickle, fickle thing. It will be ready when a cake tester comes out clean. Let it cool in the pan and seriously don’t turn it out to early. I did and it was a little bit of a mess…a salvageable mess but a mess to be sure. I decorated it with some powdered sugar to cover the mess as you can see in the pictures. It tasted good though, so I do recommend trying it out if your feeling adventurous and patient.

Good luck and good eating!