Pear and Ginger Bundt Cake

I've made some wonderful friends through cake. It's pretty weird to think that had it not been for my move away from the muffin period and into the bundt obsession, I would never have started Bolton Clandestine Cake Club, and some of my closest friends would still be strangers.

I've baked for my friends for years. When I left my job of ten years, I made the Banoffee Pie Bundt, so it was only fitting that I took cake to my first day in my new job. This involved the creation of a brand new department, and I was lucky enough to be taking my team with me. We decided the best way to say hello to our new colleagues was by plying them with cake. At 7am on day one, I was icing a bundt in their kitchen. Happy days.

This bundt is beautifully light and has a subtle pear flavour, spicy warmth and the odd little nugget of ginger. The glaze is very fine so that the shape of the tin is visible - it's too pretty to hide.

Ingredients:

• 225g butter
• 450g golden caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 350g plain flour
• 3 tbsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 50g crystallised stem ginger cut into small cubes (I used Opies)
• 250ml pear yoghurt (I used Activia - it has nice chunks of pear)
• 300g icing sugar
• Fresh apple and pear juice ( I used Copella)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas 3/160 c
2. Prepare a regular sized bundt tin - 2.4l, 10 cup, 10 inch with Cake Release spray and dust with flour.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
5. Add the vanilla extract.
6. In a separate bowl, measure out the flour, ground ginger, bicarbonate of soda, salt and ginger.
7. Pour the yoghurt into a jug and add 1 tbsp of your apple and pear juice.
8. Sift in a third of the flour mix followed by half the yoghurt. Repeat this until everything is combined. 
9. Tip: Your ginger will get trapped in the sieve and get coated in flour - this stops it from sinking...
10. Add the chopped ginger to the mix.
11. Give everything a quick mix on a low speed for about 10 seconds.
12. Pour the mix into your prepared tin. 
13. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 
14. Leave the cake to cool for ten minutes before removing from the tin.
15. Let the cake cool fully before even considering icing...
16. Mix the icing sugar with enough of the apple and pear juice to make quite a runny icing, and tip it over your cake. Gravity will do the rest!

And there we have it. A rather elegant looking bundt which went down a treat. One lady didn't even get up the stairs before she had to head back down for another slice! Happens to the best of us...

Bloggers: Please respect the fact I am sharing my own ideas and basic recipe. Blood, sweat and many tears have gone into getting this right, so you may enjoy a perfect bundt. If you wish to re-blog a recipe from these variations, please credit my blog and link to this original post rather than pasting the recipe on your own page.
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