A sophisticated yet surprisingly easy holiday dessert: moist and tender almond cake with fresh sliced pears, sliced almonds, and a dusting of sugar
Good morning beautiful people!! Happy Christmas Week :)
This wonderful pear almond cake is a perfect last minute dessert, it’s incredibly easy to make and just requires a few ingredients. The original recipe is from NYT cooking with over 1K 5-star reviews- I made some adjustments to fit my preferences. I’ll link the original recipe here.
The cake base itself is incredibly soft, with a lovely flavor from both almond and vanilla extracts. Layer sliced pears and sliced almonds on top and bake, then dust with powdered sugar before serving. Stunning! Truly screams winter in a cake. Full recipe (with adaptions) below, enjoy :)
Pear Almond Cake
8 tbsp (1/2 cup-1 stick) melted unsalted butter
4 eggs, beaten until lightly foamy
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract
1 2/3 cups almond flour (180g) (recommend weighing in grams for most accuracy)
¾ cup granulated sugar (I’d say you could even reduce to ½ cup with good results if you prefer things a bit less sweet)
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
2 Bartlett pears, peeled or unpeeled, thinly sliced
¼ cup sliced almonds
Heat oven to 375F, and generously grease a 9 inch springform pan.
Whisk together eggs, butter, and extracts. In a separate bowl, whisk together almond flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Add dry ingredients to wet and stir to combine.
Add batter to pan. Arrange thinly sliced pears on top of the cake. Lightly sprinkle the top of the pears with granulated sugar. Sprinkle almonds on top. Place the pan on a baking sheet. Bake on a middle rack for 45mins-1 hour, or until lightly browned on top and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before dusting with powdered sugar and serving. Enjoy!
I hope you love this recipe!! It’s truly lovely. I’d make this again for any holiday party.
Stay tuned for all of my fabulous Christmas cookie box recipes coming soon! :)
With love,
Abigail