Sticky Pear and Ginger Cake

You'll need:

250g stoned dates, finely chopped.

300ml milk.

100g butter, plus extra for greasing the tin.

140g Ginger Jam (preserve)

140g dark muscovado sugar

3 large ripe pears.

175g self raising flour.

50g pecan nuts, reserve 10 and chop the rest.

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

.5 tsp mixed spice.

2 eggs, beaten.

Then you:

Heat oven to 180C/160fan/gas 4

Put the chopped dates in a pan with the milk, butter, ginger preserve and dark muscovado.

Heat gently until teh butter has melted and the mixture starts to bubble around the edges of the pan.  Stir well and set aside for 1 hour to cool.

Line the base of a buttered 23cm springform tin with parchment paper.

Peel and chop the pears into large chunks.

Mix the flour, chopped pecans and bicarb of soda with the spices, then stir into the cooled date mixture with the eggs.

Pour into the tin and scatter over the pears.  Roughly break the reserved pecans and drop on top.

Bake for 40 minutes, then cover the top loosely with foil and return to the oven for 25 -30 minutes more (until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out with just sticky crumbs.  The cake may still look wet around the pears.

I've made this cake twice now.  First time I thought it was too wet so I increased the cooking time by 15 minutes.  I made it again last night and, IMPORTANT, make sure your pears are really sweet and ripe.  Mine weren't and you can taste the difference.  Also, I think you could get away with tinned pears but add them for the last 25 minutes as I imagine they'll just turn to mush if you add them any earlier - could be wrong and I'm going to try it with the one I'm making later today.  Will let you know how I get on.

Recipe from November 2010 BBC Good Food Magazine