Pear Pinwheel and Almond Cake

Here’s another lovely recipe from “Coffee Cakes” by Lou Seibert Pappas , which I am baking with The Home Bakers  event hosted by Joyce from Kitchen Flavours.  The current bake – the Pear pinwheel and hazelnut cake – was chosen by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids who has the full recipe on her blog.

The recipe gives an option of either using almonds or hazelnuts and I used almonds because I love its fragrance. The recipe calls for blanched almonds which you’ll need to toast in the oven and grind up. I found grounded almonds selling at the local baking supply shop which means I did not even need to grind anything  (lazy me).

I made this cake twice (halved the recipe each time) because  I really like the fruit and nut combo. The first time I made it, I used the full amount of sugar specified in the recipe. It turned out much too sweet for my liking. The second time I did this, I used just 2/3 of the amount and it was just nice.When I first looked at this recipe, I got a little worried as it seems rather different from normal cakes. It does not have any baking powder and hardly uses any flour.The cake turned out very moist and has a rich and nutty flavour and goes perfectly well with the softened pears. The pears were coated with a little sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg (my favorite spices) before baking and this really enhanced the fragrance of the cake.