The Rose Necklace: November 2013

I will start off this blog with a riddle for you 'What takes two years to happen and yet a few hours to make?' Answer: This post. Bad riddle I know, but the creation of this post really was a long time coming. Before this I had lacked any motivation to do anything about it and then this morning I was in the kitchen with not much to do and a bag of pears, so I thought, 'Hey, why not write that blog?' So now I have an original recipe and a post. Yay me!

Anyhow, I will get onto talking about the food! I invented this cake by starting with a basic cake mix and just added extra stuff in. I believe this is the best way to experiment and find what suits you so by all means, go ahead! Food is supposed to be good and cooking a fun experience.

If you want this cake with a strong coconut flavour I would add in either more desiccated in place of the sultanas, or use coconut oil instead of some of the butter. As it is it is more a spiced fruit cake with a whiff of coconut on the side. The mix will possibly make more tan will fit in the tin so be prepared to make a few muffins if need be. These are made by repeating the steps for the cake or by putting the pears and sugar on the base of the tin and the mix on top, then bake for about half an hour or until golden-brown.

Also as a side note, you can use the butterscotch sauce as a topping for Ice Cream, Puddings and, (my favorite) Freshly Popped Popcorn.

Spiced Pear and Coconut Cake with Butterscotch Sauce.

Ingredients

Ingredients for Cake

Cake Mixture

200g softened butter

1 cup caster sugar

5 eggs
2 Tsp cinnamon

1 ¾ cups of nuts pulverized

2-3 D’Anjou red pears

3-4 cups plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

¾ to 1 cup desiccated coconut

Sprinkling of sultanas if desired

Splash of milk if needed to moisten mixture

Lex’s Basic Butterscotch Sauce

50g Butter

2 Tbsp Honey

¾ Tbsp Castor sugar

Dash of vanilla essence

Spiced Pear and Coconut Cake

Preheat oven to 170^oC/150⁰C fan forced.

Grease a medium sized cake tin (about 23-25 cm is good) and set aside. (There was extra mixture left from this last time I made it so I greased a muffin tin and made 6 upside down spiced pear muffins as well!)

Beat butter and sugar together (preferably using electric mixture but if one is not available mixing it well by hand is fine)

Add in eggs 1-2 at a time mixing well after each and beat until well combined.

Sift baking powder, flour and cinnamon over the top of the mix and add sultanas, nuts and coconut. Fold until combined.

If mixture looks a bit dry add a splash of milk (not too much mind you!) and continue mixing.

Place mix into tin and smooth over.

To prepare pears cut in half and remove the seeds (you can remove stalk but I don’t think it really matters) and slice very thinly lengthways.

Decoration before the oven.

Arrange over the cake mixture slightly overlapping and then sprinkle lightly with approx. 1Tbsp full of sugar.

Place in preheated oven for about 1 ¼ hours, plenty of time to make the butterscotch sauce!

Once the cake is ready to remove from the oven (skewer the middle of the cake and it is clean your cake is cooked) let it cool for ten minutes before turning onto a wire rack.

Lex’s Basic Butterscotch Sauce

Melt butter in a saucepan over a low/medium heat.

Add honey and sugar. Stir continually for 2 minutes before adding vanilla.

Stir continually until mixture thickens and starts to lightly bubble (about 3 mins).

Remove from heat and set aside until serving.

To serve either warm or cold, although I like to warm the butterscotch sauce and drizzle over room temperature cake. Best enjoyed with a cup of tea or coffee (isn't everything though?)

Bon appetit!

Me and my new creations.

Dig in!

The Rose Necklace

Saturday, 2 November 2013

Freyjas Raw Frozen Strawberry Lollypops

Spiced Pear and Coconut Cake with Butterscotch Sauce