Pear & Ginger Loaf Cake

It's been an Autumn showers kind of day.

A "back from a week away with a ton of washing and no hope of it getting dry" type of day.

A "failing to get on top of the chaos" type of day.

A "dog with conjunctivitis and separation anxiety" day.

A day where I was frantically searching for the Wunderweb at 7.37 a.m. when Blue declared that his new school trousers were definitely too long and the look on his face suggested tears were in the offing.

A day where my work 'to do' list looked scary and intimidating and I  felt a little overwhelmed.

It was also cake club day - Clandestine Cake, and as you've guessed, being the kind of day it was, the planned cake was never going to happen.

So I made a loaf cake - a humble, no nonsense kind of cake. The theme of 'Fireworks' which suggested much in the way of fancy icing has had to be satisfied with flavours of the season - ginger and cinammon, pears and walnuts. Fancy icing can wait. But as it was a "wait around for an hour in town while Pink has orchestra" type of day, after school, I did manage to get my hands on one little trick...

Pear & Ginger Loaf Cake

200g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinammon
200g unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature
150g tinned caramel
50g caster sugar
2 large eggs, beaten together
1 tbsp milk
2 balls of stem ginger, quite finely chopped
2 large pears, peeled and roughly chopped
walnut halves to decorate (optional)

3 tbsp syrup from the stem ginger jar
3 tbsp granulated sugar

Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin and pre-heat the oven to 160C/140C fan

Combine the flour, baking powder and cinnammon

Beat together the butter and caramel, then add in the sugar and continue to beat till light coloured and smooth.

Slowly add the egg, beating well after each addition - of it looks like it's going to split, add a little of the flour mixture in.

Beat in the rest of the flour, then quickly stir through the pears and ginger.

Scrape into the prepared tin and bake for at least an hour until a skewer comes out clean - mine took 1 hr 15 mins but it will depend on your oven.

Leave to cool in the tin, then mix together the ginger syrup and sugar with a tablespoon of water, poke holes all over the cake with a skewer, then drizzle over the gingery sugary drizzle.

Sparklers optional

But lots of fun...

Mrs W's Pear, Lancashire and Walnut Muffins

For various reasons, of which more another time, I haven't been doing much imaginative cooking or baking recently, apart from my Fairtrade Green Tea, Caradmon & Vanilla Cake yesterday. Still - who needs to when I have friends like Mrs W making the most DELICIOUS muffins. Honestly. She posted the recipe for these babies up on her Facebook and I asked if I could put them up here. 

 
Before I let you read her post, some more about Mrs W. She is down to earth, practical and a great laugh. She is the Senior Scout Wife and I count myself as very lucky to know her: she has saved my sanity on more than one occasion with wise words, and, on even more occasions, with gin.

I think  have long suspected that she is a blogger in the making. And I was not wrong. Here is her post for her gorgeous Pear, Lancashire and Walnut muffins:

"I like to bake, though I’m not quite in Recipe Junkie’s league (it’s always worth volunteering to babysit at the RJ household – just for access to the contents of Grandma’s cake tin) ...and have spawned a daughter who, though I hate to admit it, makes a much better lemon cake than I do... and some great chocolate cookies – which isn’t all bad (apart from my needing to run further) ... but every once in a while inspiration strikes – in this case due to lots of pears in my weekly veg box – and, combined with quite happily playing fast and loose with a recipe, these little marvels were the result.

After staying with my parents in a lovely, lovely B&B in the Lake District, which does the most amazing (you really won’t need lunch) breakfasts, I found they had their favourite muffin recipe on their website  - check it out: Lowthwaite B&B even better, go and stay (but don’t tell everyone or there won’t be space for me) – and I’ve been making these with whatever fruit I need to use up ever since ... and this was my starting point.

They were ok the first time, but too sweet – I’d left in the sugar and hadn’t used enough cheese -  but, I think I have it sorted now, this batch were pretty darn good:

200g plain flour

Going...

2tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarb
good pinch of salt
a good grinding of black pepper
75g melted butter
200ml buttermilk (or half and half milk/natural yoghurt)
1 egg
1 diced ripe pear
75g ish small diced cheese (I used tasty Lancashire - showing my northern roots)
50/75g or so chopped walnuts

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, mix together the wet ingredients and add to the dry...

Stir until roughly combined then put into muffin tin (I have a silicone muffin mould which is great for these as I don't need paper cases) – makes 12

Baked at 200degC for 20/25mins, or so - your oven may vary - when they should be golden brown and done.

Yum"

going...

So you see - a blogger in the making. I was lucky enough to receive one of these lovely little muffins and boy was it delicious. I think you should too. And leave a comment - we need to get Mrs W into the blogosphere!