Chai-spiced Pear Cake

Emelia Jackson in her latest book, "First, cream the butter and the sugar" has developed this glorious chai tea flavoured cake, it's a Chai spiced Pear Cake. It's absolutely delicious with a very tender crumb, and was a pleasure to make this week. I'm delighted to be able to share the cake making process with you, at last. Thanks Emelia.

Cake bakers beware, this is not a cake to take for granted. It's not the kind of cake where you wake up one day thinking, I'll make Emelia's Chai Spiced Pear Cake today. That's not because it's difficult to make, in fact the actual cake making is a cinch, it just takes a little preparation in advance. So allow yourself part of the day beforehand to become prepared.

Recently Mr. HRK and I have come to enjoy sitting down in the afternoon and enjoying a soothing hot cup of chai, preferably with a slice of cake. Besides being one of my favourite drinks, chai also makes a beautiful flavouring to add to desserts and baked goods. This cake recipe requires 90 ml of chai concentrated essence, which  involves simmering the chai spices and leaves to extract the flavour and then boiling the liquid down to make an essence. It's a simple process, but I would suggest you do this the day before you plan to make the cake, and store the chai essence in the refrigerator. One less thing to do on the day of your cake baking.

When we were up North in Cairns, a couple of weeks ago I found sachets of Chai leaves and spices, a product made by the Spice Girls, not the famous pop singing group as far as I know, but this group produce a lovely range of herbs and spices in the north. This is what I used for this cake. There weren't just tea leaves in this packet, there was star anise, ginger, cardamon, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves all contributing to a highly scented infusion.

Tinned pears are used in this recipe, but if you wanted to poach some pears, and use those I think that would be fine. Liz, one of my Mahjong friends, who is a very good cake baker with an Italian background, suggested that the pears could be poached in a chai as well for an even more heady flavour. Sounds good to me. 

These pears were extra large and I used some out of an 800 g tin. There wouldn't be as many in a 400g tin as the recipe suggests. 

I made this cake yesterday for my 8 Mahjong friends, served it with Chantilly cream, and there was only one small slice left. I did see a couple of them eat two slices. I love to see them enjoying a cake I have baked.  Why not? This cake would also be perfect served as a dessert. It has a lovely soft crumb, a little like a sponge cake. 

Serving the cake for the Mahjong ladies. Coffee made by my personal barista, Mr. HRK. Photo kindly taken by my friend Marj who is one of our Mahjong players, and is a talented photographer

INGREDIENTS:

40 g  (1 1/2 oz) chai (leaves and spices, not powder)

285 g (10 oz) caster sugar (superfine)

4 eggs

215 g (7 1/2 oz) cake flour (purchase it or recipe to make your own is below)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

120 ml (4 fl. oz) thickened (whipping) cream, at room temperature

60 g (2 1/4 oz) unsalted butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

400 g (14 oz) tin pear halves in juice, drained

Icing (confectioners') sugar, for dusting

Vanilla chantilly cream to serve

Method:

This makes a 20 cm (8 inch) cake. N.B. Please don't use a springform cake pan. Even if you line it, the liquid may leak through. I found that out the hard way!!

First things first:

Unless you want to spend a large chunk of your day in the kitchen preparing for and baking this cake, I suggest you begin preparations the day before. This includes making the chai syrup, which is integral to the flavour and success of your cake. It is also a lot of fun, and your home will smell beautiful from all of the fragrant spices in the air. Oh and also make a batch of cake flour.

Chai syrup:

Into a medium sized saucepan pour 500 ml (17 fl. oz water) and add the chai leaves and spices. Bring all of this to a slow simmer.

Leave the saucepan simmering for 15 - 20 minutes. this will extract the flavour of all of the spices beautifully.

The liquid now needs to be strained through a fine sieve into a bowl. However don't discard and waste the cooked tea leaves and spices. These can be boiled up again later, they will still have enough flavour to make yourself a well earned cup of delicious chai tea. My Spice Girls chai leaves still had plenty of flavour left.

Return the chai liquid to your saucepan which will need to be rinsed in preparation for this next step. 

 Cook the liquid over a medium heat until the chai has reduced by half to create a concentrated chai essence.

Take the saucepan off the stove,  and pour into a container to cool completely. This can now be stored in the refrigerator until you are ready to make your cake.

Make your own cake flour:

As a cake baker, I know that using cake flour makes a huge difference to a cake. Even before cake flour was a thing, my Mum's generation would just know to add cornflour to the cake batter. It ensures a light, tender and fluffy cake, because of a lighter protein content in the flour.  I also made a batch of this the day before making this cake.

Measure out 430 g (15 1/4 oz) plain flour. Add 70 g (2 1/2 oz) cornflour or potato starch (Emelia's tip, I didn't know that one about the potato starch) and sift it altogether into a well labelled special container.

MAKING YOUR CAKE:

Preheat the oven to 150 deg. C (300 deg. F). Line a deep 20 cm (8 inch) round cake tin (not springform) with baking paper.

Attach the whisk attachment to your  electric mixer. Whisk the caster sugar and eggs until thick and pale. Fold in the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt until combined.

Now add the liquid ingredients. Fold in 90 ml (3 fl oz)  of the chai concentrate which you have already prepared, the cream, melted butter and vanilla. Steady goes it. Try not to overbeat the batter as the cake won't rise well. I found the liquid ingredients integrated into the dry ingredients beautifully and didn't need much mixing at all.

Drain the pear halves well, and arrange on the base of the cake tin, and pour the beautiful batter over the top. 

Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes. Test at the end of the cooking time that it is cooked by inserting a skewer into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is cooked.

Allow the cake to cool in the  baking tin.

To serve, dust with icing sugar, and serve with whipped cream, preferably chantilly.

Here in North Queensland, in Autumn on a rainy day, the icing sugar disappears very quickly. The same thing happens in humid weather. Does that happen where you live?

Chantilly cream:

This is my simplified version of Chantilly Cream which was lovely with this cake.

200 ml (7 fl. oz) thickened whipping cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons icing sugar ( I don't like it too sweet)

Just combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and whisk. I find whisking by hand a bit tedious so I use my small handheld mixer with 2 small beaters inserted. Do many people still have these? I find mine great for small jobs like whipping cream. Be careful not to over whisk the cream. It will split and turn to butter quite quickly. When you can see the impressions of the beaters in the cream, it is generally ready.

Have a lovely weekend everyone, I hope you treat yourself to some delicious cake. 

Warm wishes 

Pauline