Because of their sweetness, pears are one of my favourite fruit and fabulous for baking and desserts. And since they’re in season it’s the perfect time to make the most of them.
In this Pear Ginger Cake with Tahini Drizzle, I’m teaming pears with freshly grated ginger and a lovely tahini sauce to serve the cake with. I always loved the pear tahini combination, but if that’s not your cup of tea, you could always switch the tahini with almond butter or completely leave it out if you prefer.
This time I’ve used teff flour in my gluten-free mix and please feel free to switch with other gluten-free flour if you don’t have any on hand like buckwheat, millet, quinoa or oat flour.
I’ve made a pear sauce for this recipe rather than using applesauce and reduced the sugar quite a bit. It makes the cake so beautifully moist, it’s a real treat. To make the pear sauce, peel, quarter and core 2 medium to large pears and place into small pot with little water. Cover and leave to cook until soft. Strain and blend until smooth.
I’ve used two large pears in this cake and you can see in the photos that it’s packed with pear pieces, I loved that. With the tahini drizzle, you can pour it over the cake, it will set on top or serve it with the cake as you prefer. Hope you like it :)
Pear Ginger Cake with Tahini Drizzle (vegan & gluten-free)
Ingredients
- 2 medium to large pears
- 100g ground almonds (1 cup)
- 35g teff flour (1/4 cup)
- 95g brown rice flour (3/4 cup)
- 30g arrowroot (1/4 cup)
- 1tsp baking powder
- 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1tsp cinnamon
- pinch sea salt
- 75g coconut sugar (1/2 cup)
- 2tbsp ground flaxseed + 6tbsp water
- 120ml pear or applesauce (1/2 cup)
- 1tsp freshly grated ginger
- 80ml olive oil (1/3 cup)
- 80ml almond milk (1/3 cup)
- 2tsp apple cider vinegar
Tahini drizzle:
- 4tbsp tahini
- 2tbsp maple syrup
- 1/4tsp cinnamon
- 3-4tbsp almond milk
Topping:
- toasted flaked almonds
- edible flowers
- thyme sprigs
Instructions
- Mix 2tbsp ground flaxseed with 6tbsp water and set aside to thicken.
- Peel, quarter and core pears and cut into smaller pieces. Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350F)
- Grease and line 10" x 4½" loaf tin.
- In a large bowl whisk together ground almonds, teff flour, brown rice flour, arrowroot, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, salt and sugar and set aside.
- In a small bowl whisk together flax eggs, pear sauce, grated ginger, olive oil, almond milk and apple cider vinegar.
- Add the wet mix to the dry mix and mix until well combined. You should have muffin consistency.
- Fold in sliced pears.
- Spoon the mixture into your prepared tin and level out the surface.
- Bake for about 40-45 min or until a cocktail stick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs.
- Remove from the oven once ready and leave to cool down for 20 min before removing from the tin.
- Whisk all of the ingredients for the tahini drizzle and either pour over the cake letting it drip over the sides or serve the sauce with the individual cut slices.
- Top with toasted flaked almonds, edible flowers, thyme sprigs or fresh pears.
- Enjoy!
Notes
To make the pear sauce, peel, quarter and core 2 medium to large pears and place into small pot with little water. Cover and leave to cook until soft. Strain and blend until smooth.
This is such a delicious cake Hana & the tahini drizzle is heavenly. Thanks for the slice I had earlier & Andreas loved his slice too! YUM! I will definitely try making this myself – it’s a really lovely recipe xxx
Thank you so much Dear Teresa for your wonderful comment! I’m so happy you both loved this cake :) xxx
Made the cake without the drizzle and topping. Excellent flavour – loved the pear, cinnamon and ginger combination. Whilst only using 1.5 pears it was a little too moist for me – will just use one next time. The cake was also very fragile – so might add a little Psyllium powder as well.
Hi Lisa, thank you so much for your comment, I so appreciate your feedback. It’s a great idea to add some Psyllium next time if you found it too fragile. Adding pieces of fruit will always make it little more fragile I find. I don’t add any binders to my gluten-free mixes (they already have so many ingredients!) but please do adjust it to your needs. Thank you so much for trying it out :) Hana
Thanks for this awesome recipe! If I want to use regular wheat flour, what changes do I need to make to this recipe? Do I just replace teff and brown rice flour with the same amount of regular flour? Any other changes that have to be made?
Hi Yunna, replace the teff, brown rice and arrowroot with the same amount of regular flour. Also you might have to slightly adjust the almond milk, gluten-free flours tend to absorb more liquid. Hope it works well :)
Beautiful recipe, I made them with a coconut butter frosting…
I have another batch in the oven now..and was contemplating topping with a chocolate ganache – Do you think this will work? As in flavour wise?
Thanks for the keeper of a recipe
Aimee