Gingered Pear Brown Butter Upside Down Cake

Sliced pears are sprinkled with crystallized ginger, then topped with a bourbon caramel and if that wasn't decadent enough... I top all that with a brown butter cake batter and baked it.

Course Desserts & Sweet Treats

Cuisine American

Keyword bourbon, brown butter, ginger, pears, vanilla bean

Prep Time 1

Cook Time 30

Total Time 1 30

Servings slices

Calories 386

Author Laurie McNamara

Ingredients

2 semi-firm Bosc pears peeled, cored and cut into eighths
2 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger
3/4 cup unsalted butter divided
2 tablespoon bourbon or water
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 pinch kosher salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean scraped
2 large eggs
1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour plus more for dusting pan
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2/3 cup buttermilk

Instructions

MAKE THE PEARS:

Preheat your oven to 350°. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.
Fan out as many pear slices in the bottom of the cake pan and sprinkle with the chopped crystallized ginger.
In a medium skillet, melt 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Keep stirring until the milk solids bubble up and eventually turn a golden brown. Pour the browned butter in a small bowl, use a spatula to get it all out and set inside another bowl filled with ice to cool it down. Pop it into your freezer for 15-20 minutes until it thickens back up.
Meanwhile, wipe out what brown butter is left in the skillet and melt 4 more tablespoons of butter along with the tablespoon of bourbon, light brown sugar and a pinch of kosher salt over medium heat. Once the sugar has dissolved and the butter/bourbon/brown sugar mixture is bubbly and has slightly thickened. Pour the bourbon caramel over the pears.

MAKE THE CAKE:

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, soda, kosher salt and nutmeg and set aside.
In the bowl of you electric mixer add the remaining four tablespoons of butter, the four tablespoons of solidified browned butter, the caviar from one vanilla bean and the 1/2 cup of sugar. Mix on medium-low speed until light and creamy, about 2 minutes.
Reduce the speed to low and add in one egg at a time, mix until each egg is incorporated.
Alternate between the dry ingredients and the buttermilk, mixing until just combined.
Spoon the cake batter over top of the caramel covered pears and spread evenly.
Bake on the middle rack of your preheated oven for 40 minutes or until a cake tester comes out with only a few crumbs attached when inserted into the center of the cake.
Let cool for 10 minutes before running a knife along the edge of the cake and inverting it onto a clean cake stand or platter. Let cake cool for 30 minutes or so before slicing and serving.
I like mine dusted with powdered sugar. Yum!

Nutrition