Preparation: 30 minutes
Cooking: 1 hour
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 4 pears, peeled, halved and cored
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 3 cups water
- 3 tablespoons soft brown sugar
- 175g soft unsalted butter
- ¾ cup caster sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup self-raising flour, sifted
- 1 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
- 3 teaspoon cinnamon
- 100g ground almonds
Method
- Heat the oven to 180°C.
- Line a 23 cm cake tin with nonstick baking paper.
- Put the caster sugar and water into a saucepan and gently cook until the sugar dissolves.
- Add the pear halves to the pan.
- Gently cook the pears for 10 minutes or until tender.
- Remove from the syrup using a slotted spoon and cool.
- Discard the syrup.
- Sprinkle a prepared cake tin with brown sugar.
- Arrange pears cut side down over the sugar.
- In a large bowl cream the butter and caster sugar until pale and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time, along with 1 tablespoon of flour, beating well between each addition.
- Fold through the remaining flour, baking powder, cinnamon and almonds.
- Spoon batter over the pears and smooth the surface.
- Bake in the oven for 50 – 55 minutes or until skewer inserted into the pudding comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and carefully turn out onto a serving plate.
- Cut into slices and serve with vanilla custard.