Vegan pear and ginger cake
I'd describe my relationship with pears as rather complicated. I eat them very rarely and therefore almost never use them in recipes. But at some point, I realized that it wasn't the taste that bothered me at all, but simply that I don't like eating pears whole. I feel the same way about tomatoes, for example.
- 180 g whole wheat flour
- 120 g sugar
- 110 g cornstarch
- 6 g (1 tsp) baking powder
- 2 tsp ginger powder
- 1 Pinch Nutmeg
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 160 g vegane Butter
- 150 g applesauce
- 50 ml ginger shot (e.g. from Voelkel)
- 1 tsp freshly grated ginger
- 2 pears
- 50 g ginger marmalade
- vegan butter for greasing
- In a large bowl, mix whole wheat flour, sugar, cornstarch, baking powder, ginger powder, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
- Now add the vegan butter, applesauce, and ginger shot and mix until a smooth dough forms. Peel the ginger root with a teaspoon and grate it into the dough.
- Grease a tart tin (35 x 11 x 2.7 cm) with vegan butter and spread the dough evenly in it. Preheat the oven to 190°C (convection).
- While the oven preheats, quarter the pears, remove the cores, and slice them thinly. Arrange the slices in a fanned-out pattern on the dough.
- Bake the cake at 190°C for about 30 minutes. Then let it cool for 10 minutes and spread with ginger marmalade.
Although I don't usually like whole pears, I love them baked in a cake! They become wonderfully soft that way, but don't release too much liquid like berries, for example. They can be baked into a cake in all sorts of ways, whether you dice them, slice them, or even add them whole to the batter. They're not too tart or too sweet, so they can be combined with many other spices and fruits. Like I said – my relationship with pears isn't exactly the most intense, but when it comes to pear cake, I'm a total fan!
From September to December, it's not only peak season for pears, but also for colds. That's why we're combining pears with ginger today, which we hope will keep us healthy through autumn and winter. The subtle sweetness of the pears and the spiciness of the ginger go together wonderfully, which is why we're adding ginger to the cake in three different ways: freshly grated, in powder form, and as a shot. For the latter, we used Voelkel's Ginger Shot. The shots contain freshly pressed ginger, sourced from fair trade smallholder cooperatives in Peru. Two 60ml Voelkel shots already cover your daily requirement of vitamin C. The small jars are great for taking on the go, while the larger bottles are perfect for shared apartments or families at home. Incidentally, the large 0.75l shot bottles are the only reusable bottles of their kind on the German market. You can stock up here.
