Ricotta Cheesecake with Blackberry Swirl

It has offcially been too long since I last made cheesecake. This one here is made with ricotta instead of cream cheese which makes it less heavy than the classic cheesecakes. The deep purple and juicy blackberries work wonderfully against the plain ricotta and the lemon zest adds a fresh kick. In my opinion, this is the perfect summer cheesecake!

Recipe

(from the fantastic "Crumb" by Ruby Tandoh) 

Crust:

150g graham crackers

75g butter

Blackberry swirl:

150g blackberries

2 tablespoons superfine sugar

Juice of half a lemon

1 teaspoon cornstarch (optional)

Filling:
500g ricotta

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup and two tablespoons heavy cream

125g superfine sugar

2 large eggs and one large egg yolk

zest of one lemon

1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Line a 20cm springform pan with parchment paper.

To make the crust, crush the graham crackers with a rolling pin or in a food processor until sandy. Melt the butter over low heat, then mix it with the graham cracker crumbs. The crumbs need to be moist enough that they'll hold together in clumps if squeezed, so add a bit more butter at this point if necessary.

Spread the mixture over the bottom of the pan and press down firmly all over. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove and let cool slightly. Decrease the oven temperature to 120°C.

Then, make the blackberry swirl. In a small pan, heat the blackberries, sugar and lemon juice over low heat, stirring occasionally until the blackberries soften. Crush with the back of a fork until no whole berries remain, then set aside to cool. If the blackberries release a lot of juice, add a teaspoon of cornstarch while the pan is still on the heat an stir for another minute or two, until thickened.

To make the filling, beat the ricotta and cornstarch together in a large bowl until creamy. Then, stir in the cream. When combined, add sugar, eggs and yolk (one at a time), lemon zest and vanilla extract.

Pour the filling onto the baked crust. Dollop spoonfulls of the blackberries on top and gently swirl through the filling using a spoon. Bake for 1 3/4 to 2 hours (with my oven, it took one and a half hour) until the filling has no more than a slight wobble in the center. The cooked cheesecake should be quite firm all over except for the blackberry swirls, which will now be sunken, jammy and a deep purple color.

Let the cheesecake cool completely in the pan beroe unmolding. Then, for a firmer texture, chill in the fridge before serving.

Peach and Hazelnut Cake

This cake saved our rainy Sunday. It's rich, moist and the sweet fruit perfectly complements the nutty flavor. And, at least, those juicy and yellow peaches look and taste like summer, as a contrast to the current weather situation…

Recipe
(from an old Saison Magazine)

250g sugar
5 eggs
one vanilla pod
150g full-fat quark (curd)
230g ground hazelnuts
250g flour
1/2 sachet baking powder
4 peaches
a bit of brown sugar for sprinkling
butter, for greasing the tin
icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line a 24cm round cake tin with parchment paper and butter the edges.

In a large bowl, cream together the eggs and the sugar with an electric hand whisk. Keep mixing for about 5 minutes until you have a pale and fluffy batter.


Scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pod. Add and mix shortly. Add quark, ground hazelnuts, flour and baking powder. Mix well until you have a creamy batter.

Fill the batter into your prepared cake tin. Wash, halve and stone the peaches. Place the peach halves on  your cake, cut surface facing up, press slightly into the batter. Sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

Bake the cake for about 30-35 minutes.

Vegan Bananabread

I think this is the first time I baked something vegan. I have an office mate who's allergic to milk protein and I've been looking out for suitable recipes for her (which is not all that difficult because there are a lot of vegan foodblogs out there). I had bookmarked this recipe here and this weekend seemed to be a good time to try it since we had some overripe bananas lying around. I really liked this cake. I wouldn't serve it for dessert, though. It's, however, perfect for breakfast or as an afternoon snack. The cake is also made without sugar and very suitable for kiddies. Julia was very fond of it.

Recipe

(from Love Nonpareille (find the German version there))

275g spelt flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 pinch of salt

50g walnuts, coarsly chopped (I ground them rather finely in the food processor. I wanted to feed Julia some of the bread, too, and therefore needed to avoid having pieces of nuts in the bread)

40g coconut oil

80g dates (about 6)

50ml almond milk

4 large ripe bananas

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line a cake tin (about 25cm) with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and walnuts. In a saucepan, melt coconut oil over low heat and let cool slightly. Add melted oil to the dry ingredients and, with a whisk, mix until combined.  

Pit the dates and, together with the almond milk, mix until you have a paste (you can either do this in a food processor or with hand-held blender). With a fork, mash 3 of the bananas. Add the date-paste, the bananas and the vanilla extract to your dry ingredients and mix with the whisk.

Fill your dough into the prepared tin. Half your left banana length-whise and then half the two pieces again. Place onto your dough. Bake for about 40-50 minutes. Test with a wooden skewer if your cake is done.

Chocolate Buckwheat Cake

I recently discovered buckwheat flour. Not because I have to have a gluten-free diet, but because I like its distinct taste. I've been experimenting with buckwheat flour a lot lately and the thing I discovered is that you have to pay attention to the quantities. If you use too much of it in a batter, the flavor becomes quite overwhelming. So, usually, a mixture of buckwheat flour and plain or wholemeal flour seems to be the solution to achieve just the right depth in flavor. Buckwheat flour works wonderfully in this chocolate cake here, in combination with ground hazelnuts and dark chocolate. I used really dark chocolate, about 79%, and I like the result a lot. If you want to brighten things up a bit, go lower on the cocoa content. The simple cream topping gives a wonderful, almost light contrast to this dark and dense cake. Plus it looks beautiful, doesn't it?! Like a cloud - to complement this chocolate heaven. This cake is incredible on the second day. I really recommend baking it a day ahead!

Recipe

(from David Lebovitz)

170g bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

115g unsalted butter, cubed

4 large eggs, separated

100g unrefined or granulated sugar

80ml plain whole-milk yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

75g almond or hazelnut flour (see Note, below)

35g buckwheat flour

Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Butter an 20cm cake pan and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.

In a large, heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter until smooth, then remove from the heat and let cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, half of the sugar, yogurt, vanilla, and salt, the whisk them into the melted chocolate. Stir in the almond or hazelnut flour, and the buckwheat flour.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or by hand, whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Gradually whip in the other half of the sugar until the whites are in firm peaks. Fold one-third of the whipped egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it, then fold in the remaining chocolate mixture just until it’s completely combined.

Scrape the batter into the pan, level the top, then bake for 25 to 30 minutes; the cake will feel relatively set, but the center of the cake should still be soft. Let cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the cake pan.

The cake will keep for up to three days at room temperature.

For serving, I topped the cake with whipped cream and dusted it with cocoa powder.

One

Our wonderful daughter turned one last week. It's truly unbelievable - a year went by and now, she's such a big girl already. The past three months have been rather intense, though. I've caught a bad flu twice and Julia's also been sick a couple of times. She's really not a difficult kid, but she's probably not the world's best sleeper. That's why lately, whenever I had some time to myself, I tried to catch up on sleep and there wasn't much time left for anything else. Apologies to all of you for having abandoned my blog for so long. For Julia's first birthday, in any case, there had to be cake! I settled for this lovely blueberry carrot cake. Blueberries and coconut are a nice twist to the traditional carrot cake. They render it moist and fluffy. Julia really liked it. In fact, we all did.

Blueberry Carrot Cake

(from Zucker, Zimt und Liebe)

180g flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

one pinch of salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

50g dessicated coconut

2 eggs

140g canola oil

150g sugar

250g ground carrots

125g blueberries (fresh or frozen, if you use frozen, don't defrost them before using)

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Butter a cake tin (ca. 11x25cm) and line with parchment paper.

In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and coconut. Set aside. In another bowl, combine eggs, oil and sugar and mix with an electric whisk for 3-4 minutes until the batter is smooth. The, add carrots and combine. Fill half your dough into the prepared tin. Roll half of the blueberries in a bit of flour and scatter onto the cake mix. Then fill in the rest of the dough and place the rest of the blueberries on top of it. You might want to press them into the dough a little.

Bake your cake for about 60-70 minutes (with my oven, it took less then 60 minutes so it really depends on your oven). Test with w wooden skewer, whether it's done.

I served this cake just as it was, mostly because Julia is not used to sugar and I did not want to go over the top, but otherwise it would surely be delicious with a cream cheese frosting.

This is, by the way, the kind of cake to make a day or two ahead because it tastes better after some time.

Pear and Chestnut Cake

This weekend, I thought that it was about time to get started with Christmas baking. So I gave this cake here a festive look and added some colorful sugar sprinkles. It would have been absolutely fabulous just the way it was, though. The cake batter consists of a mixture of all-purpose flour and chestnut flour which gives it a full and nutty flavor. The pears and the yogurt render it wonderfully moist. It was the perfect treat for an afternoon with the whole family.

Recipe

(from The French Market Cookbook by Clothilde Dusoulier)

80ml olive oil

200g brown sugar

2 large eggs

240ml plain yogurt

85g chestnut flour

140g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon sea salt

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

0.5 teaspoons baking soda

600g pears, cored and diced

2 tablespoons brown sugar for sprinkling

for the icing (optional):

about 100g icing sugar

a splash of milk or lemon juice

sugar sprinkles

My notes: I used about 100g chestnut flour and 125g all-purpose flour. And I only used about 450g pears and thought that this amount was quite sufficient. This cake would be fabulous without an icing or dusted just with icing sugar.

Preheat the oven to 175°C and line 25cm diameter springform pan with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, beat together the sugar and the eggs. Add the yogurt and the oil and beat until all is well combined. In a second bowl, combine the flours, salt, baking powder and baking soda, stirring with a whisk to remove any lumps. Fold the flour mixture and diced pears into the yogurt mixture until no trace of flour remains. The batter will be thick, avoid overworking it.

Pour the mixture into your prepared pan and level the surface with a spatula. Sprinke the remaining sugar across the surface. Bake until the top is golfen and a knife inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Let cool completely. Then, if you want to add an icing, combine milk and icing sugar and pour over your cake, sprinkle with sugar pearls or whatever you fancy.

Pumpkin Apple Cake

When I saw this recipe in Annemarie Wildeisen's cooking magazine lately, I was intrigued immediately. What a great idea to combine two fall favorites! The result is a wonderfully moist cake with a really comforting taste and a vibrant orange color. The orange peel is the little extra which gives the flavor just a bit more complexity.

Recipe

(find the German version on Annemarie Wildeisen's homepage)

300g pumpkin, peeled

400g apples, such as Golden Delicious

150g soft butter

1 teaspoon vanilla paste or half a teaspoon vanilla powder (I used the scraped out seeds of one vanilla pod)

zest of one orange

1/4 teaspoon salt

200g sugar

4 eggs

1/2 sachet baking powder

300g flour

25g slivered almonds

Butter and flour a 25cm loaf tin. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Grate your pumpkin. Peel and core your apples. Cut into slices. 

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat butter together with vanilla, orange peel, salt and sugar. Beat for about 5 minutes until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one after the other and mix well. Then, add grated pumpkin.

Sift together flour and baking powder and add to you butter-sugar-egg-mixture. I blended it in with the mixer first and then used a ladle. When all is well incorporated, fill your dough into the prepared cake tin. Stick your apple slices into the dough and sprinkle with slivered almonds (I added the almonds only after about 20 minutes of the baking time because I was afraid they would turn too brown otherwise).

Bake your cake for about 50-60 minutes. A wooden skewer inserted into the cake should come out clean.

Chestnut, Almond and Chocolate Bundt Cake

Come fall, chestnut cake always goes onto my to-bake list. I found this recipe on Fräulein Klein's blog and I am extremely pleased with the outcome. The combination of chestnut purée, ground almonds and melted dark chocolate leads to a flavorful and rich cake with great texture. Jacqueline helped me with the decoration and look what a pretty cake we had for coffee today. I was all the more happy when Jacqueline did not, as usual, just pick the sprinkles off her piece of cake and leave the rest on the plate, but when she dug in and declared this cake "unbelievably delicious".

Recipe

(from the fabulous Fräulein Klein)

100g dark chocolate

250g butter, soft

150g sugar

seeds of one vanilla pod

4 eggs

250g flour

100g ground almonds

1 teaspoon baking powder

150g chestnut purée

2 teaspoons kirsch liqueur (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180°C and butter and flour a 2l bundt cake tin.

Melt chocolate over a hot water bath and let cool. In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar and vanilla seeds with an electric hand mixer until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one by one. In another bowl, mix flour, ground almonds and baking powder. Add to your butter-sugar-egg mixture and beat well. Then, add chestnut purée, melted chocolate and kirsch liqueur and beat well. 

Fill the dough into your prepared cake tin and bake the cake for about 50-55 minutes. A skewer inserted into the cake should come out clean.

Dust with icing sugar or decorate with sugar or chocolate icing and sprinkles. I thought, roasted slivered almonds would be nice as well. I made the icing with icing sugar and a splash of milk.

 

Banana Cinnamon and Raisin Loaf

This post is dedicated to Julias cousin, little Fynn, who decided on Thursday that it was time to join the family now. We are all still totally overwhelmed since we expected him to be born by the end of October. He and his mummy are absolutely fine and they are going home this weekend. Edi, Jacqueline, Julia and I are going to visit them in the hospital today and I thought, I'll bring along cake - a mother can always use some food. Best wishes go out to Janine, Dodo and Fynn. We are so proud!

Recipe

(from the gorgeous "Love Bake Nourish" by Amber Rose)

100g raisins

80ml dark rum (or black tea or water)

175g wholegrain spelt flour, sifted

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

125g butter, melted

150g maple syrup

2 large eggs

4 very ripe bananas, mashed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease and flour a loaf tin (25 - 30cm).

Put the raisins and liquid in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simer gently for 10-15 minutes, until the raisins are plump and swollen. Remove from the heat and allow to cool, then drain off any of the remaining liquid.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat the melted butter and maple syrup with an electric hand mixer until well blended. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, with a wooden spoon, then add the mashed bananas. Stir in the drained raisins and vanilla extract. Fold in the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well to combine each addition before adding the next.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared tin, level the top with the back of a spoon or a palette knife and bake in the oven for about 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes until turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

Zucchini Bread

Zucchini are very happening at our household at the moment. I always have a batch of them at home since Jacqueline recently claimed that she likes them so much. Also, I have started to feed Julia some veggie purée and she, too, seems to like zucchini a lot. Zucchini can also be used for baking wonderful cakes. They have a very neutral taste and they give this cake its tender and moist texture. I like the addition of black chocolate chunks, dried cranberries and walnuts. The round and full flavor comes from the cinnamon and the nutmeg. This lovely cake can be prepared in no time - as you know, to me, this is one of the major selection criteria when choosing recipes these days ;-) If you prepare it a day ahead, the flavor can intensify. And, by the way, meet our cat Mia (see photo at the end of this post). She loves to sneak around while I photograph my cakes and, this time, she even made it onto one of the pictures.

Recipe

(from the fabulous smitten kitchen)

makes 2 loaves or approximately 24 muffins:

3 large eggs
235 ml olive or vegetable oil
350 grams cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
375 grams all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
55 grams chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
115 grams dried cranberries, raisins or chocolate chips or a combination thereof (optional)

Preheat oven to 175°C. Grease and flour two 25cm loaf pans. Alternately, line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk. Mix in oil and sugar, then zucchini and vanilla. Combine flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt, as well as nuts, chocolate chips and/or dried fruit, if using. Stir this into the egg mixture.

Divide the batter into prepared pans. Bake loaves for 60 minutes, plus or minus ten, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Muffins will bake far more quickly, approximately 20 to 25 minutes.

Chocolate Cake with Pears

I love to cook for special occasions. Of course, with Julia around, it's simply not possible anymore to spend a whole day in the kitchen preparing dishes for the evening. However, I still managed to cook a simple dinner for Edi's birthday. And there had to be cake! He had wished for something with chocolate and pears - a match made in heaven.

Recipe

(German Version here)

for the dough:

150g butter, soft

175g sugar

1 pinch of salt

3 eggs

150g dark chocolate, melted

2 tablespoons cream

100g ground hazelnuts

225g flour

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

for the pears:

3 ripe pears, peeled, cored, cut into slices

2 tablespoons melted butter

2 tablespoons sugar

for the glaze:

100g - 150g dark chocolate, broken into pieces

100ml cream

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 26-28cm diameter springform pan with parchment paper and grease with butter.

In a bowl, beat butter with an electric hand mixer until pale and fluffy. Add sugar and salt and mix well. Add the eggs, one by one and keep beating until the batter is pale. Add melted chocolate, cream and hazelnuts. Sift in flour and baking powder. Beat well until all is well combined. Pour your batter into the prepared springform pan. Arrange your pear sliced on the cake. Brush them with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 40-45 minutes.

When the cake has cooled, heat up the cream in a small saucepan. When it is bubbling, take away from the heat and stir in the chocolate pieces. You will need at least 100g. I usually use a bit more until I have the consistency I like. With a spoon, spread the glaze over the cake.

Apricot Cake

My summer can't go by without apricot cake. When Edi and Jacqueline brought home a large batch of them from their usual weekend grocery tour, I immediately got the idea to use some of them for baking. Here comes a really simple, but delicious cake I found in this lovely book. I added some vanilla seeds to the dough because apricot and vanilla always strikes me as a winner combination.

Recipe

(slightly adapted from "Fräulein Klein lädt ein")

90g soft butter

80g sugar

1 sachet vanilla sugar (I used a teaspoon of vanilla extract and the scraped out seeds of one vanilla pod instead)

2 eggs

190g flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

90ml milk

350g ripe apricots (you could also use other fruit or berries as well)

icing sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a springform pan of 24cm diameter with parchment paper and grease with butter. 

Wash the apricots, cut them in halves and remove the stone. Set aside.

In a bowl, beat butter, sugar and vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract and seeds) until pale and fluffy. Then, add the eggs and beat until creamy. In another bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Add this to the other mixture and combine. Then, add milk.

Fill your dough into the prepared springform pan. Place your apricots onto the dough, cut side face down. Sprinkle with some sugar before putting the cake in the oven.

Bake the cake for about 45 minutes (I suggest you test whether it's done a bit earlier - with my oven, it only took less long, about 35 minutes). When your cake is done, take it out of the oven, let cool and dust with icing sugar before serving.

Yogurt Cake with Raspberries and Dark Chocolate

Things are getting easier. My days have some sort of rhythm again. I had time to bake last Sunday morning - like in the good old times. Julia was also wide awake so I placed her bassinet right beside me in the kitchen and explained to her exactly what I was doing while I was preparing the cake batter. She watched my every move and seemed kind of delighted. I noticed that she also likes to watch me while I'm eating. She keeps looking at my mouth, smiling at me and imitating the movements. I really wonder whether she will become as much of a sweet tooth as I am, but that's left for her to decide.

Recipe

(slightly adapted from Annemarie Wildeisen's "Heissgeliebtes Backen")

100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

180g raspberries (the original recipe suggests sour cherries)

100g butter

2 eggs

150g sugar

1 sachet vanilla sugar (I used a tablespoon of vanilla extract instead)

180g plain yogurt

300g flour

1 sachet of baking powder

Preheat the oven to 170°C and line a 26cm cake tin with parchment paper. Grease the edges with butter.

Melt the butter in a saucepan and let cool a bit. In a large bowl, mix eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar. You can use an egg whisk for that. The recipe says that one should not overmix so I didn't use the electric hand mixer. Add yogurt and melted butter and mix. In another bowl, mix flour and baking powder. Add the chocolate pieces, then the raspberries. Mix and add this mixture to the wet ingredients.

Fill your mixture into your prepared cake tin. Bake for about 50 to 60 minutes. Check with a wooden skewer whether your cake is done. No cake batter should stick to the skewer. Let cool. Dust with icing sugar before serving if you like. A chocolate icing would also be nice.

Banana Bread with Millet

I've got big news for you! On March 23, our precious daughter Julia was born and we're happy to report that she's healthy. She's undoubtedly the most amazing thing that ever happened to me and I enjoy every day with her. Of course, she keeps us up at night, but I guess it could be worse. Most of the time, she's an angel and it's so exciting to get to know her. And somehow, despite my lack of sleep, I found myself in the kitchen yesterday morning, baking banana bread. It spontaneously overcame me when I looked at three over-ripe bananas on our fruit plate and I remembered this simple recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I'm a big fan of millet and I had been wondering how this cake would turn out. The uncooked grains add a crunch to the smooth and moist dough. I like it a lot. Also, it's not that sweet and it's just as perfect for afternoon tea as well as for breakfast.

Recipe
(from the fabulous Smitten Kitchen)

3 large ripe-to-over-ripe bananas
1 large egg
80ml virgin coconut oil, warmed until it liquefies, or olive oil
65g light brown sugar
60-80ml maple syrup, depending on how sweet you like it
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 pinch of ground cloves
180g flour or spelt flour
50g uncooked millet

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Line a 22-25cm cake tin with parchment paper.

In the bottom of a large bowl, mash bananas with a potato masher, the back of a wooden spoon or with a fork until virtually smooth but a few tiny lumps remain. Whisk in egg, then oil, brown sugar, syrup and vanilla extract. Sprinkle baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves over mixture and stir until combined. Stir in flour until just combined, then millet.

Pour mixture into your prepared pan and bake until a tester comes out clean, about 40 - 50 minutes. Cool loaf in the pan or on a wire rack.

Honey and Pear Layer Cake with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting

I hope that you guys had a good time this Christmas. Edi and I spent most of the time with our families enjoying their company and the delicious food. My highlight were the traditional British Christmas treats Edi's mother had prepared for us: turkey, pudding and mince pies! Yesterday, we went to see my dad who also cooked a delicious dinner. At some point towards the end of the evening, though, my brother's girlfriend looked at me, with an exhausted look on her face, and said that she cannot not even look at any more food. And I don't know how you guys are feeling right about now, but one tends to reach a stage during December where one is glad that, after several Christmas dinners, everything goes back to the usual. However, I still do not want to deprive you of this scrumptious recipe. As usual, for our yearly Christmas dinner at mum's, dessert was my task. This honey and pear layer cake is perfect for festive occasions and it is most certainly a highlight on each dessert table. The caramelized pears complement the fluffy and spicy-sweet sponge wonderfully. And the frosting is devilishly good. Enjoy in thin slices only if you want to leave some room for Christmas cookies…

Recipe

(from the lovely and always reliable Cake Days by Tarek Malouf)

For the caramelized pears:
3 pears
20g butter
60g runny honey
40g sugar

For the dough:
4 eggs
120g sugar
40g brown sugar
120ml buttermilk
120g runny honey
120ml vegetable oil
1 teaspoon grated zest of a lemon
280g flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt

For the frosting:
100g soft butter
500g icing sugar
50g runny honey
250g cream cheese
optional: ground cinnamon and sugar pearls for the decoration

You either need 4 springform pans of 20cm diameter or you can also use 2 springform pans of 24cm diameter.

Preheat the oven to 170°C and line the springform pans with parchment paper.

For the pears: Peel and core the pears, cut in slices (not too thin). In a pan, heat butter, honey and sugar until melted. Add the pears and let cook until they are golden and soft. Don't let them cook too long or they will get too soft. Take away from the heat and let cool.

For the dough, put eggs and both sugars in a large bowl (I had to use a larger one than usual for this quantity of dough) and mix with an electric hand mixer until pale and fluffy. Mix buttermilk, honey, oil and lemon zest and add. Mix until well combined.

In another bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Carefully add to the wet ingredients in two steps.

Fill your dough into the prepared tins and arrange the caramelized pear slices on the dough in a circle.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes (depending on the size of your tins, it takes a bit longer with the 24cm tins). Test with a wooden skewer whether the cakes are done. If no dough sticks to them, they're done. Take out of the oven and let cool in the tins first. Then, release them from the tins and let cool on wire racks.

When the cakes are completely cool, you can prepare your frosting: In a bowl, mix butter and icing sugar with an electric mixer on low speed until you have a powdery batter. Add the cream cheese and the honey On high speed, mix until you have a fluffy batter.

Now, assemble your cake: Put one layer of the cake on a cake plate. Spread about 3-4 tablespoons of frosting on the cake. Cover with the second layer (and repeat if you have four layers). If this is your top layer, begin to frost the top and the sides of the cake with a palette knife.