THB : Pear Pinwheel and Hazelnut Cake

It's time for our fourth bake at The Home Bakers (THB)! This fourth bake, Pear Pinwheel and Hazelnut Cake is chosen by my baking buddy, Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids. I think most of you would've already know Zoe, if you don't, then please drop by Zoe's wonderful blog with beautiful bakes and whilst you are there, take a look at a wonderful bi-monthly event started by Zoe, "Cook Like A Star". You can read all about this delicious event and join in!

Pear Pinwheel and Hazelnut Cake is categorized under Delectable Dessert Cakes in  the book "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas, where THB is currently baking from. Under this category, ground nuts serve as flour, lending both body and flavour in some of the cakes. The toppings are either fresh fruits, nuts and even chocolate wafer, all these take the place of frosting. I have always prefer cakes without frosting, and would usually omit the frosting for most cakes.

Our fellow bakers at THB, has wonderfully given some tips and advices, when they made this cake earlier. Thank you gals! 

This recipe calls for Anjou or Bosc pears, both of which are not easily found over here, and it also depends on the seasonal availability from overseas. So I used ripe fragrant pears from China.  The pears are sliced and tossed with a mixture of icing sugar, ground nutmeg and ground cinnamon. They are then arranged on the cake batter in a pinwheel pattern before baking.

 The pinwheel pattern is attractive and it looks nice.

From the picture in the book, this is a fairly low cake, as it does not contain any leavening at all. It uses toasted hazelnuts, ground with  2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour.  I do not like to ground nuts, so I used store-bought ground hazelnuts, mixed with  2 tablespoons of flour.

As usual, I reduced the sugar as I did in most recipes, especially since my fellow bakers at THB has commented how sweet this cake is! For this, I only use 1/3 cup loosely packed brown sugar instead of 1/2 cup tightly packed as per the original recipe. This was supposed to be baked in a 9-inch springform pan, and seeing how the others comments about how low this cake is, I baked this in a 7-1/2-inch loose-bottomed pan, which works out great. Thanks for all the wonderful tips, gals!

Overall review : Moist nutty cake, however, it is a little too moist for me, the pears releases some of its juices and makes the cake especially moist.  The pears tasted nice with the mixture of icing sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Overall this is a nice cake. My daughter likes it, but I personally do not favour it much. 

Please do visit Zoe for the recipe and stop by THB to see our fellow bakers bake on this moist nutty cake.

THB is currently baking from Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas, if you would like to join in, please hop over to THB for details on how to become a member. Everyone's welcome!

Kitchen Flavour's notes :

~ use store-bought ground hazelnut

~ reduced brown sugar to 1/3 cup, loosely packed

~ replace almond essence with vanilla extract

~ baked in a 7-1/2 inch round loose-bottomed pan