Maple, pear and walnut cake
Ready in 1½ hours Makes 1 large cake
300g butter, melted but not too hot 6 eggs
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup sugar
¼ cup maple syrup or honey
1 Tbsp mixed spice
1 tsp baking powder
4 pears, quartered, cored and thinly
sliced
1 cup walnut pieces
Icing sugar, to dust
Yoghurt, cream or icecream, to serve
Preheat oven to 170C fan bake. Grease the sides of a 23cm x 33cm roasting dish or 30cm diameter cake tin and line the base with baking paper.
Combine all ingredients except pears, walnuts and icing sugar in a food processor and whizz until smooth.
Pour into prepared tin and arrange pears evenly over the top (they will sink into the batter so don’t worry about trying to make them look pretty). Sprinkle with walnuts then bake until cake is risen and set and a skewer comes out cleanly when inserted into the centre (50-60 minutes).
Allow to cool in tin. Serve dusted with icing sugar with a dollop of yoghurt, cream or icecream. It will keep for 3 or 4 days in a sealed container in a cool place.
Match this with ...
Pegasus Bay Waipara Valley Fortissimo Muscat NV ($40)
Sightings of this wine are super-rare. It’s like the vinous version of the Ashburton panther or the Fiordland moose or the infamous East Auckland monkey-cat (shoutout to my cryptozoology buds). Crafted using tiny amounts of muscat grapes that’ve been left on the vine to intensify the sweetness, it’s then fermented and fortified to 16 per cent with a splash of neutral spirit. It’s layered with luxuriously sweet lemon verbena, apricot and spiced fig complexity. Gloriously golden, it’s criminally lovely with this cake.