Maple Pear Cake

It caught my eye because it’s such a unique, beautiful combination of ingredients that work really well together. The cake itself is perfection. Beautiful and elegant.

This cake is just plain delicious.  It has all of the flavors of the season, without being too in-your-face festive or gimmicky.  The shredded pears add plenty of moisture while the bit of almond meal lends great texture and flavor to this tender, little cake.  I was planning on a maple buttercream, but maple alone just wasn’t cutting it.  Instead, a pinch of spice and dash of molasses create great depth of flavor and help balance out the cloyingness of straight maple syrup.  The vanilla bean seeds add a touch of warmth in both the cake and frosting to round out all of the flavors.

I frosted the cake as smoothly as possible. I used an open star tip to pipe simple stars around the bottom.  For the top of the cake, I piped shells around the edges – starting at the edge furthest from me, then tapering off the pressure and pulling the tails towards the center, rotating the cake as I went.  

To finish, pipe small stars again on top of the tails of the shells.  The fluted tip ads an abundance of texture that makes you look like a world-class pastry chef without too much effort.

Get the full recipe and instructions here >> Maple Pear Cake @ thecakeblog.com