Recipe: Upside Pear Crunch Coffee Cake

By Elizabeth Falkner for Harry & David (reprinted with permission)

Elizabeth Falkner, master chef and restaurateur,  has partnered with Harry & David for their Seasonal Chef Program. As part of the program, Falkner created this Upside Pear Crunch Coffee Cake, which makes use of their juicy and delicious Royal Riviera® Pears.  If Falkner looks familiar, it’s because she’s a seasoned veteran in culinary competitions. She’s also the author of Cooking Off the Clock: Recipes From My Downtime, published by Ten Speed Press. You can see her in the upcoming  Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef show which premiers next week.

Ingredients

For the Crunch:

  • 1 1⁄2 cup demerara sugar (sub turbinado or brown sugar)
  • 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1⁄4 tsp. ground nutmeg
  • 1⁄2 tsp salt
  • 1 Tbl flour
  • 2 Tbls butter

For the Coffee Cake:

  • 2 Harry & David Royal Riviera® Pears, cored and sliced into 1/2 ” slices with skin on
  • 4 oz. unsalted butter
  • 1 cups sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1⁄4 cup milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1⁄2 cups flour
  • 1 1⁄2 tsp baking powder
  • 1⁄2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt

Instructions

For the Crunch:

  • Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl. Work together with a spatula or your hands. Set aside.

For the Coffee Cake:

  • Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
  • Sprinkle half of the Crunch mixture divided between 2 loaf pans (1/4 of the total crunch in each pan – the rest is reserved for the last layer).
  • Divide the pears slices – put have in the bottom of each loaf pan on top of the Crunch layer.
  • Divide Coffee Cake batter and pour over the pears in each pan.
  • Divide the rest of the Crunch over the batter in each pan.
  • Bake for 30 minutes until cake is set.

To Serve:

  • Cool completely. This takes awhile, be patient or better yet, make it the day before and refrigerate it. Invert the cake onto a serving plate when cool, slice and serve.
  • Whipped cream or quality vanilla ice cream would be  a great garnish.

Preparation time: 30 minute(s)

Cooking time: 30 minute(s)

Cooling time: several hours or overnight

Number of servings (yield): 4

My rating 5 stars:  ★★★★★ 1 review(s)